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fiLIPHAS LfiVI’S 
TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


i 


\ 


De LAURENCE, SCOTT & CO.’S 

American Edition Now Ready 

Transcendental Magic 

Its Doctrine and Ritual 

By ELIPHAS LEVI 

Author of “The Mysteries of Magic” 

A COMPLETE TRANSLATION FROM THE FRENCH ORIGINAL 

By ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE 

Including all the famous original engravings and a life-size portrait of ISliphas 
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TRANSCENDENTAL 

MAGIC 


ITS DOCTRINE AND RITUAL 


BY 


fiLIPHAS LfiVI ^ . 

f - 

AUTHOR OF “THE MYSTERIES OF MAGIC’ 


A COMPLETE TRANSLATION OF 

“DOGME ET RITUEL DE LA HAUTE MAGIE” 

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 

BY 

ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE 

AUTHOR OF “DEVIL WORSHIP IN FRANCE,” ETC., ETC. 


INCLUDING ALL THE ORIGINAL ENGRAVINGS AND 
A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR 


CHICAGO 

de LAURENCE, SCOTT & CO. 

1910 




‘JL- 


















COPYRIGHT 1910 

de LAURENCE, SCOTT & CO. 




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BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 


Eliphas Levi Zahed is a pseudonym which was adopted in 
his occult writings by Alphonse Louis Constant, and it is 
said to be the Hebrew equivalent of that name. The 
author of the Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie was 
born in humble circumstances about the year 1810 , being 
the son of a shoemaker. Giving evidence of unusual in¬ 
telligence at an early age, the priest of his parish con¬ 
ceived a kindly interest for the obscure boy, and got him 
on the foundation of Saint Sulpice, where he was educated 
without charge, and with a view to the priesthood. He 
seems to have passed through the course of study at that 
seminary in a way which did not disappoint the expecta¬ 
tions raised concerning him. In addition to Greek and 
Latin, he is believed to have acquired considerable knowl¬ 
edge of Hebrew, though it would be an error to suppose that 
any of his published works exhibit special linguistic attain¬ 
ments. He entered on his clerical novitiate, took minor or¬ 
ders, and in due course became a deacon, being thus bound 
by a vow of perpetual celibacy. Shortly after this step, he 
was suddenly expelled from Saint Sulpice for holding opin¬ 
ions contrary to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. 
The existing accounts of this expulsion are hazy, and in¬ 
corporate unlikely elements, as, for example, that he was 
sent by his ecclesiastical superiors to take duty in country 
places, where he preached with great eloquence what, how¬ 
ever, was doctrinally unsound; but I believe that there is 
no precedent for the preaching of deacons in the Latin 
Church. Pending the appearance of the biography which 
has been for some years promised in France, we have few 
available materials for a life of the “Abbe” Constant. 



VI 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


In any case, he was cast back upon the world, with the 
limitations of priestly engagements, while the priestly career 
was closed to him—and what he did, or how he contrived 
to support himself, is unknown. By the year 1839 he had 
made some literary friendships, including that of Alphonse 
Esquiros, the forgotten author of a fantastic romance, en¬ 
titled “The Magician”;* and Esquiros introduced him to 
Ganneau, a distracted prophet of the period, who had 
adopted the dress of a woman, abode in a garret, and there 
preached a species of political illuminism, which was ap¬ 
parently concerned with the restoration of la vraie legitimite. 
He was, in fact, a second incarnation of Louis XVII.— 
“come back to earth for the fulfilment of a work of re¬ 
generation.”! Constant and Esquiros, who had visited him 
for the purpose of scoffing, were carried away by his elo¬ 
quence, and became his disciples. Some element of so¬ 
cialism must have combined with the illuminism of the 
visionary, and this appears to have borne fruit in the brain 
of Constant, taking shape ultimately in a book or pamphlet, 
entitled ‘ ‘ The Gospel of Liberty, ’ ’ to which a transient im¬ 
portance was attached, foolishly enough, by the imprison¬ 
ment of the author for a term of six months. There is some 
reason to suppose that Esquiros had a hand in the pro¬ 
duction, and also in the penalty. His incarceration over, 
Constant came forth undaunted, still cleaving to his 
prophet, and undertook a kind of apostolic mission into 

* M. Papus, a contemporary French occultist, in an extended study 
of the “Doctrine of Eliphas Levi,” asks scornfully: “Who now 
remembers anything of Paul Augnez or Esquiros, journalists pre¬ 
tending to initiation, and posing as professors of the occult sciences 
in the salons they frequented 1 ?” No doubt they are forgotten, but 
Eliphas Levi states, in the Histoire de la Magie, that, by the publi¬ 
cation of his romance of “The Magician,” Esquiros founded a 
new school of fantastic magic, and gives sufficient account of his 
work to show that it was in parts excessively curious. 

t A woman who was associated with his mission, was, in like 
manner, supposed to have been Marie Antoinette.—See Histoire de 
la Magie, 1. 7., c. 5. 



TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


Vll 


the provinces, addressing the country people, and suffering, 
as he himself tells us, persecution from the ill-disposed.t 
But the prophet ceased to prophesy, presumably for want 
of an audience, and Id vraie legitimite was not restored, 
so the disciple returned to Paris, where, in spite of the 
pledge of his diaconate, he effected a runaway match with 
Mdlle. Noemy, a beautiful girl of sixteen. This lady bore 
him two children, who died in tender years, and sub¬ 
sequently she deserted him. Her husband is said to have 
tried all expedients to procure her return, # but in vain, and 
she even further asserted her position by obtaining a legal 
annulment of her marriage, on the ground that the con¬ 
tracting parties were a minor and a person bound to celibacy 
by an irrevocable vow. The lady, it may be added, had 
other domestic adventures, ending in a second marriage 
about the year 1872. Madame Constant was not only very 
beautiful, but exceedingly talented, and after her separa¬ 
tion she became famous as a sculptor, exhibiting at the 
Salon and elsewhere under the name of Claude Yingmy. 
It is not impossible that she may be still alive; in the 
sense of her artistic genius, at least, she is something more 
than a memory. 

At what date Alphonse Louis Constant applied himself 
to the study of the occult sciences is uncertain, like most 
other epochs of his life. The statement on page 142 of 
this translation, that in the year 1825 he entered on a 
fateful path, which led him through suffering to knowledge, 


j- A vicious story, which has received recently some publicity in Paris, 
charges Constant with spreading a report of his death soon after 
his release from prison, assuming another name, imposing upon the 
Bishop of Eveux, and obtaining a licence to preach and administer 
the sacraments in that diocese, though he was not a priest. He is 
represented as drawing large congregations to the cathedral by his 
preaching, but at length the judge who had sentenced him unmasked 
the impostor, and the sacrilegious farce thus terminated dramatically. 

* Including Black Magic and pacts with Lucifer, according to the 
silly calumnies of his enemies. 



Vlll 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


must not be understood in the sense that his initiation took 
place at that period, which was indeed early in boyhood. 
It obviously refers to his enrolment among the scholars of 
Saint Sulpice, which, in a sense, led to suffering, and per¬ 
haps; ultimately to science, as it certainly obtained him 
education. The episode of the New Alliance—so Gannean 
termed his system—connects with transcendentalism, at 
least on the side of hallucination, and may have furnished 
the required impulse to the mind of the disciple; but in 
1846 and 1847, certain pamphlets issued by Constant under 
the auspices of the Libraire Societaire and the Libraire 
Phalansterienne shew that his inclinations were still to¬ 
wards Socialism, tinctured by religious aspirations. The 
period which intervened between his wife’s desertion* and 
the publication of the Dogme de la Haute Magie, in 1855, 
was that, probably, which he devoted less or more to occult 
study. In the interim he issued a large “Dictionary of 
Christian Literature,” which is still extant in the encyclo¬ 
paedic series of the Abbe Migne; this work betrays no lean¬ 
ing towards occult science, and, indeed, no acquaintance 
therewith. What it does exhibit unmistakably is the in¬ 
tellectual insincerity of the author, for he assumes therein 
the mask of perfect orthodoxy, and that accent in matters of 
religion which is characteristic of the voice of Rome. The 
Dogme de la Haute Magie was succeeded in 1856 by its com¬ 
panion volume the Rituel, both of which are here translated 
for the first time into English. It was followed in rapid 
succession by the Histoire de la Magie, I860; La Clef des 
Grands Mysteres, 1861; a second edition of the Dogme et 
Rituel , to which a long and irrelevant introduction was 
unfortunately prefixed, 1862; Fables et Symboles, 1864; 

* I must not be understood as definitely attaching blame to Madame 
Constant for the course she adopted. Her husband was approach¬ 
ing middle life when he withdrew her—still a child—from her legal 
protectors, and the runaway marriage which began by forswearing 
was, under the circumstances, little better than a seduction thinly 
legalised, and it was afterwards not improperly dissolved. 




TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


IX 


Le Sorder de Meudon, a beautiful pastoral idyll, impressed 
with the cachet cabalistique ; and La Science des Esprits, 
1865. The two last works incorporate the substance of the 
pamphlets published in 1846 and 1847. 

The precarious existence of Constant’s younger days was 
in one sense but faintly improved in his age. His books 
did not command a large circulation, but they secured him 
admirers and pupils, from whom he received remuneration 
in return for personal or written courses of instruction. He 
was commonly to be found chez lui in a species of magical 
vestment, which may be pardoned in a French magus, and 
his only available portrait—prefixed to this volume—rep¬ 
resents him in that guise. He outlived the Franco-German 
war, and as he had exchanged Socialism for a sort of 
transcendentalised Imperialism, his political faith must 
have been as much tried by the events which followed the 
siege of Paris as was his patriotic enthusiasm by the reverses 
which culminated at Sedan. His contradictory life closed 
in 1875 amidst the last offices of the church which had al¬ 
most expelled him from her bosom. He left many manu¬ 
scripts behind him, which are still in course of publication, 
and innumerable letters to his pupils—Baron Spedalieri 
alone possesses nine volumes—have been happily preserved 
in most cases, and are in some respects more valuable than 
the formal treatises. 

No modern expositor of occult science can bear any com¬ 
parison with Eliphas Levi, and among ancient expositors, 
though many stand higher in authority, all yield to him in 
living interest, for he, is actually the spirit of modem 
thought forcing an answer for the times from the old 
oracles. Hence there are greater names, but there is no 
influence so great—no fascination in occult literature ex¬ 
ceeds that of the French magus. The others are surrendered 
to specialists and the typical serious students to whom all 
dull and unreadable masterpieces are dedicated, directly or 
not; but he is read and appreciated, much as we read and 
appreciate new and delightful verse which, through some 


X TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 

conceit of the poet, is put into the vesture of Chaucer. 
Indeed, the writings of Eliphas Levi stand, as regards the 
grand old line of initiation, in relatively the same position 
as the “Earthly Paradise” of Mr. William Morris stands to 
the “Canterbury Tales.” There is the recurrence to the 
old conceptions, and there is the assumption of the old 
drapery, but there is in each case the new spirit. The 
‘ ‘ incommunicable axiom ’ ’ and the ‘ ‘ great arcanum, ’ ’ Azoth, 
Inri, and Tetragrammaton, which are the vestures of the 
occult philosopher, are like the “cloth of Bruges and hogs¬ 
heads of Guienne, Florence gold cloth, and Ypres napery” 
of the poet. In both cases it is the year 1850 et seq., in a 
mask of high fantasy. Moreover, “the idle singer of an 
empty day” is paralleled fairly enough by “the poor and 
obscure scholar who has recovered the lever of Archimedes. ’’ 
The comparison is intentionally grotesque, but it obtains 
notwithstanding, and even admits of development, for as 
Mr. Morris in a sense voided the raison d’etre of his poetry, 
and, in express contradiction to his own mournful question, 
has endeavored to “set the crooked straight” by betaking 
himself to Socialism, so Eliphas Levi surrendered the rod 
of miracles and voided his Doctrine of Magic by devising 
a one-sided and insincere concordat with orthodox religion, 
and expiring in the arms of “my venerable masters in 
theology,” the descendants, and decadent at that, of the 
“imbecile theologians of the middle ages.” But the one is, 
as the other was, a man of sufficient ability to make a 
paradoxical defence of a position which remains untenable. 

Students of Eliphas Levi will be acquainted with the 
qualifications and stealthy retractations by which the some¬ 
what uncompromising position of initiated superiority in 
the “Doctrine and Ritual,” had its real significance read 
out of it by the later works of the magus. I have dealt 
with this point exhuastively in another place,* and there is 

* See the Critical Essay prefixed to ‘ 1 The Mysteries of Magic: a 
Digest of the Writings of Eliphas Levi.” London: George Redway. 
1886. 



TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


XI 


no call to pass over the same ground a second time. I 
propose rather to indicate as briefly as possible some new 
considerations which will help us to understand why there 
were grave discrepancies between the “Doctrine and Ritual 
of Transcendent Magic” and the volumes which followed 
these. In the first place, the earlier books were written 
more expressly from the standpoint of initiation, and in the 
language thereof; they obviously contain much which it 
would be mere folly to construe after a literal fashion, and 
what Eliphas Levi wrote at a later period is not so much 
discrepant with his earlier instruction—though it is this 
also—as the qualifications placed by a modern transcen- 
dentalist on the teachnical exaggerations of the secret 
sciences. For the proof we need travel no further than the 
introduction to 11 The Doctrine of Magic, ’ ’ and to the Hebrew 
manuscript cited therein, as to the powers and privileges 
of the magus. Here the literal interpretation would be in¬ 
sanity; these claims conceal a secret meaning, and are 
trickery in their verbal sense. They are what Eliphas Levi 
himself terms “hyperbolic,” adding: “If the sage do not 
materially and actually perform these things, he accom¬ 
plishes others which are much greater and more admir¬ 
able” (p. 223). But this consideration is not in itself 
sufficient to take account of the issues that are involved; 
it will not explain, for example, why Eliphas Levi, who 
consistently teaches in the 1 ‘ Doctrine and Ritual ’ ’ that the 
dogmas of so-called revealed religion are nurse-tales for 
children, should subsequently have insisted on their accep¬ 
tation in the sense of the orthodox Church by the grown 
men of science, and it becomes necessary here to touch upon 
a matter which, by its nature, and obviously, does not admit 
of complete elucidation. 

The precise period of study which produced the “Doctrine 
and Ritual of Transcendent Magic” as its first literary 
result is not indicated with any certainty, as we have seen, 
in the life of the author, nor do I regard Eliphas Levi as 
constitutionally capable of profound or extensive book 


Xii TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 

study. Intensely suggestive, he is at the same time without 
much evidence of depth; splendid in generalisation, he is 
without accuracy in detail, and it would be difficult to cite 
a worse guide over mere matters of fact. His ‘ ‘ History of 
Magic ’ ’ is a case in point; as a philosophical survey it is 
admirable, and there is nothing in occult literature to ap¬ 
proach it for literary excellence, but it swarms with his¬ 
torical inaccuracies; it is in all respects an accomplished 
and in no way an erudite performance, nor do I think that 
the writer much concerned himself with any real reading 
of the authorities whom he cites. The French verb parcourir 
represents his method of study,and not the verb appro- 
fondir. Let us take one typical case. There is no occult 
writer whom he cites with more satisfaction, and towards 
whom he exhibits more reverence, than William Postel, and 
of all Postel’s books there is none which he mentions so 
often as the Clavis Absconditorum d Constitutione Mundi ; 
yet he had read this minute treatise so carelessly that he 
missed a vital point concerning it, and apparently died 
unaware that the symbolic key prefixed to it was the work 
of the editor and not the work of Postel. It does not 
therefore seem unreasonable to affirm that had Levi been 
left to himself, he would not have got far in occult science, 
because his Gallic vivacity would have been blunted too 
quickly by the horrors of mere research; but he did some¬ 
how fall within a circle of initiation which curtailed the 
necessity for such research, and put him in the right path, 
making visits to the Bibliotheque Nationale and the Arsenal 
of only subsidiary importance. This, therefore, constitutes 
the importance of the “Doctrine and Ritual”; disguised 
indubitably, it is still the voice of initiation; of what school 
does not matter, for in this connection nothing can be 
spoken plainly, and I can ask only the lenience of deferred 
judgment from my readers for my honourable assurance 
that I am not speaking idly. The grades of that initiation 
had been only partly ascended by Eliphas Levi when he 
published the “Doctrine and Ritual,” and its publication 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


Xlll 


closed the path of his progress: as he was expelled by Saint 
Sulpice for the exercise of private judgment in matters of 
doctrinal belief, so he was expelled by his occult chiefs for 
the undue exercise of personal discretion in the matter 
of the revelation of the mysteries. Now, these facts explain 
in the first place the importance, as I have said, of the 
“Doctrine and Ritual,” because it represents a knowledge 
which cannot be derived from books; they explain, secondly, 
the shortcomings of that work, because it is not the result 
of a full knowledge; why, thirdly, the later writings con¬ 
tain no evidence of further knowledge; and, lastly, I think 
that they materially assist us to understand why there are 
retractations, qualifications, and subterfuges in the said 
later works. Having gone too far, he naturally attempted 
to go back, and just as he strove to patch up a species of 
modus vivendi with the church of his childhood, so he en¬ 
deavoured, by throwing dust in the eyes of his readers, to 
make his peace with that initiation, the first law of which 
he had indubitably violated. In both cases, and quite 
naturally, he failed. 

It remains for me to state what I feel personally to be 
the chief limitation of Levi, namely, that he was a tran- 
scendantalist but not a mystic, and, indeed, he was scarcely 
a transcendentalist in the accepted sense, for he was funda¬ 
mentally a materialist—a materialist, moreover, who at 
times approached perilously towards atheism, as when he 
states that God is a hypothesis which is “very probably 
necessary”; he was, moreover, a disbeliever in any real 
communication with the world of spirits. He defines 
mysticism as the shadow and the buffer of intellectual 
light, and loses no opportunity to enlarge upon its false 
illuminism, its excesses, and fatuities. There is, therefore, 
no way from man to God in his system, while the sole 
avenues of influx from God to man are sacramentally, and 
in virtue merely of a tolerable hypothesis. Thus man must 
remain in simple intellectualism if he would rest in reason; 
the sphere of material experience is that of his knowledge; 


XIV 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


and as to all beyond it, there are only the presumptions of 
analogy. I submit that this is not the doctrine of occult 
science, nor the summum bonum of the greater initiation; 
that transcendental pneumatology is more by its own hy¬ 
pothesis than an alphabetical system argued kabbalis- 
tically; and that more than mere memories can on the same 
assumption be evoked in the astral light. The hierarchic 
order of the visible world has its complement in the in¬ 
visible hierarchy, which analogy leads us to discern, being 
at the same time a process of our perception rather than 
a rigid law governing the modes of manifestation in all 
things seen and unseen; initiation takes us to the bottom 
step of the ladder of the invisible hierarchy and instructs us 
in the principles of ascent, but the ascent rests personally 
with ourselves; the voices of some who have preceded can 
be heard above us, but they are of those who are still upon 
the way, and they die as they rise into the silence, towards 
which we also must ascend alone, where initiation can no 
longer help us, unto that bourne from whence no traveller 
returns, and the influxes are sacramental only to those who 
are below. 

An annotated translation exceeded the scope of the pres¬ 
ent undertaking, but there is much in the text which follows 
that offers scope for detailed criticism, and there are points 
also where further elucidation would be useful. One of the 
most obvious defects, the result of mere carelessness or 
undue haste in writing, is the promise to explain or to prove 
given points later on, which are forgotten subsequently by 
the author. Instances will be found on p. 65, concerning 
the method of determining the appearance of unborn chil¬ 
dren by means of the pentagram; on p. 83, concerning the 
rules for the recognition of sex in the astral body; on p. 97, 
concerning the notary art; on p. 100, concerning the mag¬ 
ical side of the Exercises of St. Ignatius; on p. 123, concern¬ 
ing the alleged sorcery of Grandier and Girard; on p. 125, 
concerning Schroepffer’s secrets and formulas for evocation; 
on .p. 134, concerning the occult iconography of Gaffarel. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


XV 


In some cases the promised elucidations appear in other 
places than those indicated, but they are mostly wanting al¬ 
together. There are other perplexities with which the 
reader must deal according to his judgment. The explana¬ 
tion of the quadrature of the circle on p. 37 is a childish 
folly; the illustration of perpetual motion on p. 55 in¬ 
volves a mechanical absurdity; the doctrine of the perpetua¬ 
tion of the same physiognomies from generation to genera¬ 
tion is not less absurd in heredity; the cause assigned to 
cholera and other ravaging epidemics, more especially the 
reference to bacteria, seems equally outrageous in physics. 
There is one other matter to which attention should be 
directed; the Hebrew quotations in the original—and the 
observation applies generally to all the works of Levi— 
swarm with typographical and other errors, some of which 
it is impossible to correct, as, for example, the passage cited 
from Rabbi Abraham on p. 266. So also the Greek con¬ 
juration, pp. 277 and 278, is simply untranslatable as it 
stands, and the version given is not only highly conjectural, 
but omits an entire passage owing to insuperable difficulties. 
Lastly, after careful consideration, I have judged it the 
wiser course to leave out the preliminary essay which was 
prefixed to the second edition of the “Doctrine and 
Ritual”; its prophetic utterances upon the mission of Na¬ 
poleon III. have been stultified by subsequent events; it is 
devoid of any connection with the work which it precedes, 
and, representing as it does the later views of Levi, it would 
be a source of confusion to the reader. The present trans¬ 
lation represents, therefore, the first edition of the Dogme 
et Ritual de la Haute Magie , omitting nothing but a few 
unimportant citations from old French grimoires in an un¬ 
necessary appendix at the end. The portrait of Levi is 
from a carte-de-visite in the possession of Mr. Edward Mait¬ 
land, and was issued with his “Life of Anna Kingsford,” 
a few months ago. 

London, September 1896. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Biographical Preface . v 

Explanation of the Figures Contained in this Work .xxi 


THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC 


Introduction . 3 

Chapter I. The Candidate. Unity of the Doctrine—Qualifica¬ 
tions necessary for the Adept. 27 

Chapter II. The Pillars of the Temple. Foundations of the 
Doctrine—The Two Principles—Agent and Patient. 37 

Chapter III. The Triangle of Solomon. Universal Theology of 
the Triad—The Macrocosm .. 44 

Chapter IV. The Tetragram. Magical Virtue of the Tetrad— 
Analogies and Adaptations—Elementary Spirits of the Kab¬ 
balah . 52 

Chapter V. The Pentagram. The Microcosm and the sign thereof 
—Power over Elements and Spirits. 61 


Chapter VI. Magical Equilibrium. Action of the Will—Im¬ 
pulse and Resistance—Sexual love—The Plenum and the Void.. 69 

Chapter VII. The Fiery Sword. The Sanctum Regnum—The 
seven Angels and seven Genii of the Planets—Universal Virtue 
of the Septenary. 77 

Chapter VIII. Realisation. Analogical reproduction of Forces 
—Incarnation of Ideas—Parallelism—Necessary Antagonism.. 81 

Chapter IX. Initiation. The Magical Lamp, Mantle, and Staff 
—Prophecy and Intuition—Security and stability of the Initi¬ 


ate in the midst of dangers—Exercise of Magical Power.88 

Chapter X. The Kabbalah. The Sephiroth—The Semhamphoras 
—The Paths and Gates—Bereschith and Mercavah—Gematria 
and Temurah . 91 

Chapter XI. The Magic Chain. Magnetic Currents—Secrets of 
great successes—Talking Tables—Fluidic Manifestations. 99 

Chapter XII. The Great Work. Hermetic Magic—Doctrines of 
Hermes—The Minerva of the World—The grand and unique 


Athanor—'The Hanged Man.108 

Chapter XIII. Necromancy. Revelations from the other World 
—Secrets of Death and of Life—Evocations.113 
















xviii 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Chapter XIV. Transmutations. Lycanthropy—Mutual posses¬ 
sions, or embryonic state of souls—The Wand of Circe—The 
Elixir of Cagliostro . : .122 

Chapter XV. Black Magic. Demonomania—Obsessions—Urban 
Grandier—Girard—'The work of M. Eudes de Mirville.129 

Chapter XVI. Bewitchments. Dangerous forces—Power of life 
and death—Facts and Principles—Remedies—Practice of Para¬ 
celsus .•.131 

Chapter XVII. Astrology. Knowledge of Men by the Signs of 
their Nativity—Phrenology—'Chiromancy—Metoposcopy—Plan¬ 
ets and Stars—Climacteric years—Predictions by means of As¬ 
tral Revolutions .140 

Chapter XVIII. Charms and Philtres. Venomous Magic— 
Powders and Pacts of Sorcerers—The Jettatura at Naples—The 
Evil Eye—Superstitions—Talismans.148 

Chapter XIX. The Stone of the Philosophers—Elagabalus. 
What this Stone is—Why it is a Stone—Singular Analogies. .. .157 

Chapter XX. The Universal Medicine. Extension of Life by 
means of Potable Gold—Resurrection—Abolition of Pain.162 

Chapter XXI. Divination. Dreams—Somnambulism—Presenti¬ 
ments—Second Sight—Divinatory Instruments—Alliette and his 
discoveries concerning the Tarot.166 

Chapter XXII. Summary and General Key of the Four Secret 
Sciences. The Kabbalah—Magic—Alchemy—Magnetism or Oc¬ 
cult Medicine .172 










TABLE OF CONTENTS 


xix 


THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC 

PAGE 

Introduction .181 

Chapter I. Preparations. Dispositions and Principles of Magi¬ 
cal Operation—Personal Preparations of the Operator.197 


Chapter II. Magical Equilibrium. Alternative nse of Forces— 
Oppositions necessary in the Practice—Simultaneous attack and 
resistance—The Sword and Trowel of the Builders of the Temple.206 

Chapter III. The Triangle of Pantacles. Use of the Triad in 
Conjurations and Magical Sacrifices—Triangle of evocations and 
Pantacles—Triangular Combinations—The Magical Trident of 
Paracelsus .213 

Chapter IV. The Conjuration of the Four. Occult Elements 
and their Use—Manner of overcoming and subjecting Elemen¬ 
tary Spirits and Maleficent Genii .•.'.221 

Chapter V. The Blazing Pentagram. Use and Consecration of 
the Pentagram .231 

Chapter VI. The Medium and Mediator. Application of Will 
to the Great Agent—The Natural Medium and the Extra-natural 
Mediator .236 

Chapter VII. The Septenary of Talismans. Ceremonies, Vest¬ 
ments, and Perfumes proper to the seven days of the week— 
Composition of the Seven Talismans and Consecration of Magi¬ 
cal instruments .242 

Chapter VIII. A Warning to the Imprudent. Precautions nec¬ 
essary for the accomplishment of the Great Works of Science. .256 

Chapter IX. The Ceremonial of Initiates. Its end and inten¬ 
tion .260 

Chapter X. The Key of Occultism. Use of Pantacles—Their 
ancient and modern mysteries—Key of Biblical obscurities— 
Ezekiel and St. John.265 

Chapter XI. The Triple Chain. Methods of its formation .270 

Chapter XII. The Great Work. Its Processes and Secrets— 
Raymond Lully and Nicholas Flamel.274 

Chapter XIII. Necromancy. Ceremonial for the Resurrection of 
the Dead and for Necromancy.280 

Chapter XIV. Transmutations. Methods for changing the na¬ 
ture of things—The Ring of Gyges—'Words which accomplish 
Transmutations .292 

Chapter XV. The Sabbath of the Sorcerers. Rites and special 
evocations of the Sabbath—The Goat of Mendes and its worship 
—Aberations of Catherine de Medecis and Giles de Laval, 
Lord of Retz .299 

















XX 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Chapter XVI. Witchcraft and Spells. Ceremonial for the same 


—Mode of defence against them.317 

Chapter XVII. The Writing of the Stars. Divination by Stars 
Planisphere of Gaffarel—How the Destinies of Men and Em¬ 
pires may be read in Heaven.325 

Chapter XVIII. Philtres and Magnetism. Composition of 
Philtres—How to influence Destinies—Remedies and Preven¬ 
tives .338 

Chapter XIX. The Mastery of the Sun. Use of the Philo¬ 
sophical Stone—How it must be preserved, disintegrated, and 
recomposed .347 

Chapter XX. The Thaumaturge. Therapeutics—Warm and 
cold Insufflations—Passes with and without contact—Imposition 
of hands—Diverse virtues of saliva—Oil and Wine—Incubation 
and Massage .352 

Chapter XXI. The Science of the Prophets. Ceremonial for 
Divinatory Operations—'The Clavicle of Trithemius—Probable 
future of Europe and of the world.359 


Chapter XXII. The Book of Hermes. After what manner all 
science is contained in the occult work of Hermes—Antiquity 
of this book—Labours of Court de Gebelin and of Etteilla— 
The Theraphim of the Hebrews according to Gaffarel—The Key 
of William Postel—A book of Saint Martin—The true shape of 
the Ark of the Covenant—Italian and German Tarots—Chinese 
Tarots—A German Medal of the sixteenth century—Universal 
Key of the Tarot—Its application to the Symbols of the Apoca¬ 
lypse. The seven seals of the Christian Kabbalah—Conclusion 


of tne entire work . 369 

SUPPLEMENT TO THE RITUAL. 

The Nuctemeron of Appolonius of Tyana. 401 

The Nuctemeron according to the Hebrews. 409 

INDEX .415 












EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES CONTAINED IN 

THIS WORK. 


PAGE 

Figure I. The Great Symbol of Solomon. 2 

The Double Triangle of Solomon, represented by the two 
Ancients of the Kabbalah; the Macroprosopus and the Micro- 
prosopus; the God of Light and the God of Reflections; mercy 
and vengeance; the white Jehovah and the black Jehovah. 

Figure II. Sacerdotal Esotericism making the sign of Excom¬ 
munication . 26 

A sacerdotal hand making the sign of esotericism and pro¬ 
jecting the figure of the demon in its shadow. Above are the 
Ace of Deniers, as found in the Chinese Tarot, and two super¬ 
posed triangles, one white and one black. It is a new allegory 
explaining the same mysteries; it is the origin of good and evil; 


it is the creation of the demon by mystery. 

Figure III. The Triangle of Solomon. 40 

Figure IY. The Four Great Kabbalistic Names. 55 

Figure V. The Pentagram of Faust. 61 

Figure YI. The Tetragram of the Zohar. 93 

Figure YII. Addha-Nari, grand Indian Pantacle.154 


This pantheistic image represents Religion or Truth, terrible 
for the profane and gentle for initiates. It has more than one 
analogy with the Cherub of Ezekiel. The human figure is placed 
between a bridled bull and a tiger, thus forming the triangle of 
Kether, Geburah, and Gedulah, or Chesed. In the Indian sym¬ 
bol, the four magical signs of the Tarot are found in the four 
hands of Addha-Nari—on the side of the initiate and of mercy 
are the sceptre and the cup; on the side of the profane, rep¬ 
resented by the tiger, are the sword and the circle, which latter 
may become either the ring of a chain or an iron collar. On the 
side of the initiate, the goddess is clothed only with the skin of 
the tiger; on that of the tiger itself she wears a long star- 
spangled robe, and even her hair is veiled. A fountain of milk 
springs from her forehead, falls on the side of the initiate, and 
about Addha-Nari and the two animals it forms a magic circle, 
enclosing them in an island which represents the world. The 
goddess wears round her neck a magic chain, formed of iron 
links on the side of the profane and of intelligent heads on that 
of the initiate; she bears on her forehead the figure of the 
lingam, and on either side of her are three superposed lines 
which represent the equilibrium of the triad, and recall the 
trigrams of Fo-Hi. 

Figure VIII. The Pantacles of Ezekiel and Pythagoras.173 

The four-headed Cherubim of Ezekiel’s prophecy, explained 
by the double triangle of Solomon. Below is the wheel of 

xxi 










xxii 


EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES 


page 

Ezekiel, key of all pantaeles, and the pantaele of Pythagoras. 

The cherub of Ezekiel is here represented as it is described by 
the prophet. Its four heads are the tetrad of Mercavah; its six 
wings are the senary of Bereschith. The human figure in the 
middle represents reason; the eagle ’s head is faith; the bull 
is resignation and toil; the lion is warfare and conquest. This 
symbol is analogous to that of the Egyptian sphinx, but is more 
appropriate to the Kabbalah of the Hebrews. 

Figure IX. The Sabbatic Goat. The Bapliomet of Mendes. .. .180 
A pantheistic and magical figure of the Absolute. The torch 
placed between the two horns represents the equilibrating in¬ 
telligence of the triad. The goat’s head, which is synthetic, and 
unites some characteristics of the dog, bull, and ass, represents 
the exclusive responsibility of matter and the expiation of bodily 
sins in the body. The hands are human, to exhibit the sanctity 
of labour; they make the sign of esotericism above and below, to 
impress mystery on initiates, and they point at two lunar cres¬ 
cents, the upper being white and the lower black, to explain the 
correspondences of good and evil, mercy and justice. The lower 
part of the body is veiled, portraying the mysteries of universal 
generation, which is expressed solely by the symbol of the cadu- 
ceus. The belly of the goat is scaled, and should be coloured 
green; the semi-circle above should be blue; the plumage, reach¬ 
ing to the breast, should be of various hues. The goat has female 
breasts, and thus its only human characteristics are those of 
maternity and toil, otherwise the signs of redemption. On its 
forehead, between the horns and beneath the torch, is the sign 
of the microcosm, or the pentagram with one beam in the ascend¬ 
ant, symbol of human intelligence, which, placed thus below the 
torch, makes the flame of the latter an image of divine revela¬ 
tion. This Pantheos should be seated on a cube, and its footstool 
should be a single ball, or a ball and a triangular stool. In our 
design we have given the former only to avoid complicating 


the figure. 

Figure X. The Triangle of Solomon. 195 

Figure XI. The Trident of Paracelsus.212 


This trident, symbol of the triad, is formed of three pyra¬ 
midal teeth superposed on a Greek or Latin tau. On one of its 
teeth is a jod, which on one side pierces a crescent, and on the 
other a transverse line, a figure which recalls hieroglyphically 
the zodiacal sign of the Crab. On the opposite tooth is a com¬ 
posite sign recalling that of the Twins and that of the Lion. 
Between the claws of the Crab is the sun, and the astronomical 
cross is seen in proximity to the lion. On the middle tooth there 
is hieroglyphically depicted the figure of the celestial serpent, 
with the sign of Jupiter for its head. By the side of the Crab 
is the word Obito, or Begone, Retire; and by the side of the 
Lion is the word Imo, Although, Persist. In the centre, and 
near the symbolical serpent there is Ap Do Sel, a word composed 
of an abbreviation, of a word written kabbalistically and in the 
Hebrew fashion, and, finally, of a complete ordinary word; Ap 
which should be read Ar, because these are the first two letters 




EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES 


xxiii 


PAGE 

of the Greek Archeus; Do, which should be read Od; and, 
lastly, Sel, Salt. These are the three prime substances, and the 
occult names of Archeus and Od have the same significance as 
the Sulphur and Mercury of the Philosophers. On the iron stem 
which serves as a haft for the trident there is the triplicated 
letter P. P. P., a phallic and lingamic hieroglyph, with the 
words Vli Dox Fato, which must be read by taking the first 
letter for the number of the Pentagram in Roman figures, thus 
completing the phrase Pentagrammatica Libertate Dox Fato, 
equivalent to the three letters of Cagliostro—L. P. D.—Liberty, 
Power, Duty. On the one side, absolute liberty; on the other, 
necessity or invincible fatality; in the centre, Reason, the Kab- 
balistic Absolute, w T hich constitutes universal equilibrium. This 
admirable magical summary of Paracelsus will serve as a key 
to the obscure works of the Kabbalist Wronski, a remarkable 
man of learning who more than once allowed himself to be car¬ 
ried away from his Absolute Reason by the mysticism of his 
nation, and by pecuniary speculations unworthy of so distin¬ 
guished a thinker. We allow him at the same time the honour 
and the glory of having discovered before us the secret of the 
Trident of Paracelsus. Thus, Paracelsus represents the Passive 
by the Crab, the Active by the Lion, Intelligence or equilibrating 
Reason by Jupiter or the Man-King ruling the serpent; then he 
balances forces by giving the Passive the fecundation of the 
Active represented by the Sun, and to the Active space and 
might to conquer and enlighten under the symbol of the Cross. 

He says to the Passive: Obey the impulse of the Active and ad¬ 
vance with it by the very equilibrium of resistance. To the 
Active he says: Resist the immobility of obstacle; persist and 
advance. Then he explains these alternated forces by the great 
central triad— Liberty, Necessity, Reason,—Reason in the 
centre, Liberty and Necessity in counterpoise. There is the 
power of the Trident, there its haft and foundation; it is the 
universal law of nature; it is the very essence of the Word, 
realised and demonstrated by the triad of human life—the Ar¬ 
cheus, or mind; the Od, or plastic mediator; and the Salt or 
visible matter. We have given separately the explanation of 
this figure because it is of the highest importance, and gives the 
measure of the greatest genius of the occult sciences. After this 
interpretation, it will be understood why, in the course of our 
work, we invariably bow with the traditional veneration of true 
adepts before the divine Paracelsus. 

Figure XIII. The Pantagram... . .234 

Figure XIY. Magical Instruments—the Lamp, Rod, Sword, and 
Dagger .. .252 

Figure XV. The Key of Thoth.292 

Figure XYI. Goetic Circle of Black Evocations and Pacts.310 

Figures XYII. and XVIII. Divers infernal characters taken from 
Agrippa, Peter of Apono, a number of Grimoires, and the docu¬ 
ments of the trial of Urban Grandier..'.312, 313 








xxiv 


EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES 


PAGE 

Figure XIX. Kabbalistic signs of Orion...328 

Figure XX. Infernal Characters of the Twelve Signs of the 
Zodiac .330 

Figure XXI. Magic Squares of the Planetary Genii according to 
Paraeelsus I... ..375, 376 

Figure XXII. Chariot of Hermes, seventh Key of the Tarot.379 

Figure XXIII. The Ark of the Covenant.385 

Figure XXIV. Apocalyptic Key—Tne Seven Seals of St John.. .390 







THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC 






























































INTRODUCTION 


Behind the veil of all the hieratic and mystical allegories 
of ancient doctrines, behind the shadows and the strange 
ordeals of all initiations, under the seal of all sacred writ¬ 
ings, in the ruins of Ninevah or Thebes, on the crumbling 
stones of the old temples, and on the blackened visage of 
the Assyrian or Egyptian sphinx, in the monstrous or 
marvellous paintings which interpret to the faithful of 
India the inspired pages of the Vedas, in the strange em¬ 
blems of our old books of alchemy, in the ceremonies at 
reception practised by all mysterious societies, traces are 
found of a doctrine which is everywhere the same, and 
everywhere carefully concealed. Occult philosophy seems 
to have been the nurse or god-mother of all intellectual 
forces, the key of all divine obscurities, and the absolute 
queen of society in those ages when it was reserved ex¬ 
clusively for the education of priests and of kings. It 
reigned in Persia with the magi, who at length perished, as 
perish all masters of the world, because they abused their 
power; it endowed India with the most wonderful tradi¬ 
tions, and with an incredible wealth of poesy, grace, and 
terror in its emblems; it civilised Greece to the music of 
the lyre of Orpheus; it concealed the principles of all the 
sciences and of all human intellectual progress in the bold 
calculations of Pythagoras; fable abounded in its miracles, 
and history, attempting to appreciate this unknown power, 
became confused with fable; it shook or strengthened em¬ 
pires by its oracles, caused tyrants to tremble on their 
thrones, and governed all minds, either by curiosity or by 
fear. For this science, said the crowd, there is nothing 
impossible; it commands the elements, knows the language 



4 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


of the stars, and directs the planetary courses; when it 
speaks, the moon falls blood-red from heaven; the dead rise 
in their graves and articulate ominous words as the night 
wind blows through their skulls. Mistress of love or of 
hate, the science can dispense paradise or hell at its 
pleasure to human hearts; it disposes of all forms, and 
distributes beauty or ugliness; with the rod of Circe it 
alternately changes men into brutes and animals into men; 
it even disposes of life or death, and can confer wealth on 
its adepts by the transmutation of metals and immortality 
by its quintessence or elixir compounded of gold and light. 
Such was magic from Zoroaster to Manes, from Orpheus to 
Apollonius of Tyana, when positive Christianity, at length 
victorious over the brilliant dreams and titanic aspirations 
of the Alexandrian school, dared to launch its anathemas 
publicly against this philosophy, and thus forced it to be¬ 
come more occult and mysterious than ever. Moreover, 
strange and alarming rumours began to circulate concerning 
initiates or adepts; these men were everywhere surrounded 
by an ominous influence; they killed or drove mad those 
who allowed themselves to be carried away by their honeyed 
eloquence or by the fame of their learning. The women 
whom they loved became Stryges, their children vanished at 
their nocturnal meetings, and men whispered shudderingly 
and in secret of bloody orgies and abominable banquets. 
Bones had been found in the crypts of ancient temples, 
shrieks had been heard in the night, harvests withered and 
herds sickened when the magician passed by. Diseases 
which defied medical skill at times appeared in the world, 
and always, it was said, beneath the envenomed glance of 
the adepts. At length an universal cry of execration went 
up against magic, the mere name became a crime, and the 
common hatred was formulated in this sentence: “Magi¬ 
cians to the flames!” as it was shouted some centuries 
earlier: “To the lions with the Christians!” Now the mul¬ 
titude never conspires except against real powers; it 
possesses not the knowledge of what is true, but it has the 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


5 


instinct of what is strong. It remained for the eighteenth 
century to deride both Christians and magic, while in¬ 
fatuated with the homilies of Rousseau and the illusions 
of Cagliostro. 

Science, notwithstanding, is at the basis of magic, as at 
the foundation of Christianity there is love, and in the 
Gospel symbols we see the Word incarnate adored in his 
cradle by three magi, led thither by a star (the triad and 
the sign of the microcosm), and receiving their gifts of gold, 
frankincense, and myrrh, a second mysterious triplicity, 
under which emblem the highest secrets of the Kabbalah 
are allegorically contained. Christianity owes, therefore, no 
hatred to magic, but human ignorance has ever stood in fear 
of the unknown. The science was driven into hiding to 
escape the impassioned assaults of a blind love; it clothed 
itself with new hieroglyphics, dissimulated its labours, 
denied its hopes. Then it was that the jargon of alchemy 
was created, a permanent deception for the vulgar, a living 
language only for the true disciple of Hermes. 

Extraordinary fact! Among the sacred books of the 
Christians there are two works which the infallible Church 
makes no claim to understand and has never attempted to 
explain; these are the prophecy of Ezekiel and the Apo- 
calypse, two Kabbalistic Keys assuredly reserved in heaven 
for the commentaries of magician Kings, books sealed with 
seven seals for faithful believers, yet perfectly plain to an 
initiated infidel of the occult sciences. There is also another 
book, but, although it is popular in a sense and may be 
found everywhere, this is of all most occult and unknown, 
because it has the key of all others; it is in public evidence 
without being known to the public; no one dreams of seek¬ 
ing it where it actually is, and elsewhere it is lost labour to 
look for it. This book, possibly anterior to that of Enoch, 
has never been translated, but is still preserved unmutilated 
in primeval characters, on detached leaves, like the tablets 
of the ancients. A distinguished scholar has revealed, 
though no one has observed it, not indeed its secret, but its 


6 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


antiquity and singular preservation; another scholar, but of 
a mind more fantastic than judicious, passed thirty years in 
the study of this book, and has merely suspected its whole 
importance. It is, in fact, a monumental and extraordinary 
work, strong and simple as the architecture of the pyramids, 
and consequently enduring like those—a book which is the 
sum of all the sciences, which can resolve all problems by 
its infinite combinations, which speaks by evoking thought, 
is the inspirer and regulator of all possible conceptions, the 
masterpiece perhaps of the human mind, assuredly one of 
the finest things bequeathed to us by antiquity, an universal 
key, the name of which has been explained and compre¬ 
hended only by the learned William Postel, an unique text, 
whereof the initial characters alone exalted the devout spirit 
of Saint Martin into ecstasy, and might have restored reason 
to the sublime and unfortunate Swedenborg. We shall 
speak of this book later on, and its mathematical and pre¬ 
cise explanation will be the complement and crown of our 
conscientious undertaking. The original alliance of Chris¬ 
tianity and the science of the magi, once it is thoroughly 
demonstrated, will be a discovery of no second-rate im¬ 
portance, and we question not that the serious study of 
magic and the Kabbalah will lead earnest minds to the 
reconciliation of science and dogma, of reason and faith, 
heretofore regarded as impossible. 

We have said that the Church, whose special office is the 
custody of the Keys, does not pretend to possess those of 
the Apocalypse or of Ezekiel. In the opinion of Christians 
the scientific and magical clavicles of Solomon are lost; yet, 
at the same time, it is certain that, in the domain of in¬ 
telligence ruled by the Word, nothing which has been 
written can perish; things which men cease to understand 
simply cease to exist for them, at least in the order of the 
Word, and they enter then into the domain of enigma and 
mystery. Furthermore, the antipathy, and even open war, 
of the official church against all that belongs to the realm 
of magic, which is a kind of personal and emancipated 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


7 


priesthood, is allied with necessary and even with inherent 
causes in the social and hierarchic constitution of Christian 
sacerdotalism. The Church ignores magic—for she must 
either ignore it or perish, as we shall prove later on; yet 
she does not the less recognise that her mysterious founder 
was saluted in his cradle by the three magi—that is to 
say, by the hieratic ambassadors of the three parts of the 
known world and the three analogical worlds of occult 
philosophy. In the school of Alexandria, magic and Chris¬ 
tianity almost joined hands under the auspices of Ammonius 
Saccas and of Plato; the doctrine of Hermes is found almost 
in its entirety in the writings attributed to Denis the Areo- 
pagite; and Synesius sketched the plan of a treatise on 
dreams, which was later on to be annotated by Cardan, and 
composed hymns which might have served for the liturgy of 
the Church of Swedenborg, could a church of the illu¬ 
minated possess a liturgy. With this period of fiery ab¬ 
stractions and impassioned warfare of words there must 
also be connected the philosophic reign of Julian, called the 
Apostate because in his youth he made an unwilling pro¬ 
fession of Christianity. Everyone is aware that Julian was 
sufficiently wrongheaded to be an unseasonable hero of 
Plutarch, and was, if one may say so, the Don Quixote of 
Koman Chivalry; but what most people do not know is 
that Julian was one of the illuminated and an initiate of 
the first order; that he believed in the unity of God and 
in the universal doctrine of the Trinity; that, in a word, 
he regretted nothing of the old world but its magnificent 
symbols and its exceedingly gracious images. Julian was 
not a pagan; he was a Gnostic allured by the allegories of 
Greek polytheism, who had the misfortune to find the name 
of Jesus Christ less sonorous than that of Orpheus. The 
Emperor personally paid for the academical tastes of the 
philosopher and rhetorician, and after affording himself the 
spectacle and satisfaction of expiring like Epaminondas 
with the periods of Cato, he had in public opinion, already 


8 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


thoroughly Christianised, anathemas for his funeral oration 
and a scornful epithet for his ultimate celebrity. 

Let us skip the little men and small matters of the Bas- 
Empire, and pass on to the Middle Ages. . . . Stay, take 
this book! Glance at the seventh page, then seat yourself 
on the mantle lam spreading, and let each of us cover our 
eyes with one of its comers. . . . Your head swims, does 
it not, and the earth seems to fly beneath your feet ? Hold 
tightly, and do not look around. . . . The vertigo ceases; 
we are here. Stand up and open your eyes, but take care 
before all things to make no Christian sign and to pronounce 
no Christian words. We are in a landscape of Salvator 
Kosa, a troubled wilderness which seems resting after a 
storm; there is no moon in the sky, but you can distinguish 
little stars gleaming in the brushwood, and you can hear 
about you the slow flight of great birds, who seem to whisper 
strange oracles as they pass. Let us approach silently that 
cross-road among the rocks. A harsh, funeral trumpet 
winds suddenly, and black torches flare up on every side. 
A tumultuous throng is surging round a vacant throne; all 
look and wait. Suddenly they cast themselves on the 
ground. A goat-headed prince bounds forward among 
them; he ascends the throne, turns, and by assuming a 
stooping posture, presents to the assembly a human face, 
which, carrying black torches, every one comes forward to 
salute and to kiss. With a hoarse laugh he recovers an 
upright position, and then distributes gold, secret instruc¬ 
tions, occult medicines, and poisons to his faithful bonds¬ 
men. Meanwhile, fires are lighted of fern and alder, piled 
over with human bones and the fat of executed criminals. 
Druidesses crowned with wild parsley and vervain immo¬ 
late unbaptised children with golden knives and prepare 
horrible love-feasts. Tables are spread, masked men seat 
themselves by half-nude females, and a Bacchanalian orgie 
begins; there is nothing missing but salt, the symbol of 
wisdom and immortality. Wine flows in streams, leaving 
stains like blood; obscene talk and fond caresses begin, 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


9 


and presently the whole assembly is drank with wine, with 
pleasure, with crime, and singing. They rise, a disordered 
throng, and hasten to form infernal dances. . . . Then 

come all legendary monsters, all phantoms of nightmare; 
enormous toads play inverted flutes and blow with their 
paws on their flanks; limping scarabeei mingle in the dance; 
crabs play the castanets; crocodiles beat time on their scales; 
elephants and mammoths appear habited like Cupids and 
foot it in the ring; finally, the giddy circles break up and 
scatter on all sides. . . . Every yelling dancer drags 

away a dishevelled female. . . . Lamps and candles 

formed of human fat go out smoking in the darkness. 

. . . Cries are heard here and there, mingled with peals 

of laughter, blasphemies, and rattlings of the throat. Come, 
rouse yourself, do not make the sign of the cross! See, I 
have brought you home; you are in your own bed, somewhat 
worn-out, possibly a trifle shattered, by your night’s journey 
and dissipation; but you have witnessed something of which 
everyone talks without knowledge; you have been initiated 
into secrets no less terrible than the grotto of Triphonius; 
you have been present at the Sabbath. It remains for you 
now to preserve your reason, to have a wholesome dread of 
the law, and to keep at a respectful distance from the 
Church and her faggots. 

Would you care, as a change, to behold something less 
fantastic, more real, and also more truly terribje? You 
shall assist at the execution of Jacques de Molay and his 
accomplices or his brethren in martyrdom. ... Do not, 
however, be misled, confuse not the guilty and the innocent! 
Did the Templars really adore Baphomet? Did they offer 
a shameful salutation to the buttocks of the goat of Mendes? 
What was actually this secret and potent association which 
imperilled Church and State, and was thus destroyed un¬ 
heard? Judge nothing lightly; they are guilty of a great 
crime; they have allowed the sanctuary of antique initiation 
to be entered by the profane. By them for a second time 
have the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and 


10 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


evil been gathered and shared, so that they might become 
the masters of the world. The sentence which condemns 
them has a higher and earlier origin than the tribunal of 
pope or king: “On the day that thou eatest thereof, thou 
shalt surely die,” said God Himself, as we see in the book 
of Genesis. 

What is taking place in the world, and why do priests 
and potentates tremble? What secret power threatens 
tiaras and crowns ? A few madmen are roaming from land 
to land, concealing, as they say, the philosophical stone 
under their ragged vesture. They can change earth into 
gold, and they are without food or lodging! Their brows 
are encircled by an aureole of glory and by a shadow of 
ignominy! One has discovered the universal science and 
goes vainly seeking death to escape the agonies of his 
triumph—he is the Majorcan Raymond Lully. Another 
heals imaginary diseases by fantastic remedies, giving a 
formal denial in advance to the proverb which enforces 
the futility of a cautery on a wooden leg—he is the mar¬ 
vellous Paracelsus, always drunk and always lucid, like the 
heroes of Rabelais. Here is William Postel writing naively 
to the fathers of the Council of Trent, informing them that 
he has discovered the absolute doctrine, hidden from the 
foundation of the world, and is longing to share it with 
them. The council does not concern itself with the maniac, 
does not condescend to condemn him, and proceeds to ex¬ 
amine the weighty questions of efficacious grace and sufficing 
grace. He whom we see perishing poor and abandoned is 
Cornelius Agrippa, less of a magician than any, though 
the vulgar persist in regarding him as a more potent sor¬ 
cerer than all because he was sometimes a cynic and mys- 
tifier. What secret do these men bear with them to their 
tomb? Why are they wondered at without being under¬ 
stood ? Why are they condemned unheard ? Why are they 
initiates of those terrific secret sciences of which the Church 
and society are afraid? Why are they acquainted with 
things of which others know nothing? Why do they con- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


11 


ceal what all men burn to know? Why are they invested 
with a dread and unknown power? The occult sciences! 
Magic! These words will reveal all and give food for 
further thought! De omni re scibili et quibusdam aliis. 

But what, as a fact, was this magic? What was the 
power of these men who were at once so proud and so 
persecuted? If they were really strong, why did they not 
overcome their enemies? But if they were weak and foolish, 
why did people honour them by fearing them ? Does magic 
exist ? Is there an occult knowledge which is truly a power, 
which works wonders fit to be compared with the miracles 
of authorized religions? To these two palmary questions 
we make answer by an affirmation and a book. The book 
shall justify the affirmation, and the affirmation is this, 
Yes, there existed in the past, and there exists in the pres¬ 
ent, a potent and real magic; yes, all that legends have said 
of it is true, but, in contrariety to what commonly happens, 
popular exaggerations are, in this case, not only beside but 
below the truth. There is indeed a formidable secret, the 
revelation of which has once already transformed the world, 
as testified in Egyptian religious tradition, symbolically 
summarised by Moses at the beginning of Genesis. This 
secret constitutes the fatal science of good and evil, and the 
consequence of its revelation is death. Moses depicts it 
under the figure of a tree which is in the centre of the 
Terrestrial Paradise, is in proximity to the tree of life and 
has a radical connection therewith; at the foot of this tree is 
the source of the four mysterious rivers; it is guarded by 
the sword of fire and by the four figures of the Biblical 
sphinx, the Cherubim of Ezekiel. . . . Here I must 

pause, and I fear already that I have said too much. Yes, 
there is one sole, universal, and imperishable dogma, strong 
as the supreme reason; simple, like all that is great; in¬ 
telligible, like all that is universally and absolutely true; 
and this dogma has been the parent of all others. Yes, 
there is a science which confers on man powers apparently 


12 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


superhuman; I find them enumerated as follows in a He¬ 
brew manuscript of the sixteenth century:— 

“These are the powers and privileges of the man who 
holds in his right hand the clavicles of Solomon, and in his 
left the branch of the blossoming almond. ^ Aleph. —He 
beholds God face to face, without dying, and converses 
familiarly with the seven genii who command the entire 
celestial army. ^ Beth. —He is above all afflictions and all 
fears. ^ Ghimel. —He reigns with all heaven and is served 
by all hell. ^ Daleth .—He disposes of his own health and 
life and can equally influence that of others. ^ He. —He 
can neither be surprised by misfortune, nor overwhelmed by 
disasters, nor conquered by his enemies. ^ Van .—He knows 
the reason of the past, present, and future. ^ Dzain .—He 
possesses the secret of the resurrection of the dead and the 
key of immortality. 

“Such are the seven chief privileges, and those which 
rank next are as follows:— 

“ n Cheth. —To find the philosophical stone. ^ Teth. —To 
enjoy the universal medicine. lod. —To be acquainted 

with the laws of perpetual motion and in a position to 
demonstrate the quadrature of the circle. ^ Caph. —To 
change into gold not only all metals, but also the earth 
itself, and even the refuse of the earth. ^ Lamed. —To sub¬ 
due the most ferocious animals and be able to pronounce the 
words which paralyse and charm serpents. ^ Mem. —To 
possess the Ars Notoria which gives the universal science. 
2 Nun. —To speak learnedly on all subjects, without prep¬ 
aration and without study. 

These, finally, are the seven least powers of the magus— 
£ Samech. —To know at first sight the deep things of the 
souls of men and the mysteries of the hearts of women, 
y Gnain. —To force nature to make him free at his pleasure, 
g Phe. —To foresee all future events which do not depend on 
a superior free will, or an all undiscemible cause. ^ Tsade. 
—To give at once and to all the most efficacious consolations 
and the most wholesome counsels. ^ Coph. —To triumph 


i i 


(( 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


13 


over adversities. ^ Resell .—To conquer love and hate, 
ty Schin .—To have the secret of wealth, to be always its mas¬ 
ter and never its slave. To know how to enjoy even pov¬ 
erty and never become abject or miserable. ^ Tau .—Let us 
add to these three septenaries that the wise man rules the 
elements, stills tempests, cures the diseased by his touch, 
and raises the dead! 

“At the same time, there are certain things which have 
been sealed by Solomon with his triple seal. It is enough 
that the initiates know, and as for others, whether they 
deride, doubt, or believe, whether they threaten or fear, 
what matters it to science or to us ? ’ ’ 

Such are actually the issues of occult philosophy, and we 
are in a position to withstand an accusation of insanity or a 
suspicion of imposture when we affirm that all these privi¬ 
leges are real. To demonstrate this is the sole end of our 
work on occult philosophy. The philosophical stone, the 
universal medicine, the transmutation of metals, the quad¬ 
rature of the circle, and the secret of perpetual motion, are 
thus neither mystifications of science nor dreams of mad¬ 
ness. They are terms which must be understood in their 
veritable sense; they are expressions of the different appli¬ 
cations of one same secret, the several characteristics of one 
same operation, which is defined in a more comprehensive 
manner under the name of the great work. Furthermore, 
there exists in nature a force which is immeasurably more 
powerful than steam, and by means of which a single man, 
who knows how to adapt and direct it, might upset and 
alter the face of the world. This force was known to the 
ancients; it consists in an universal agent having equilib¬ 
rium for its supreme law, while its direction is concerned im¬ 
mediately with the great arcanum of transcendent magic. 
By the direction of this agent it is possible to change the 
very order of the seasons; to produce at night the phe¬ 
nomena of day; to correspond instantaneously between one 
extremity of the earth and the other; to see, like 
Apollonius, what is taking place on the other side of the 


14 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


world; to heal or injure at a distance; to give speech an 
universal success and reverberation. This agent, which 
'barely manifests under the uncertain methods of Mesmer’s 
followers, is precisely that which the adepts of the middle 
ages denominated the first matter of the great work. The 
Gnostics represented it as the fiery body of the Holy Spirit; 
it was the object of adoration in the secret rites of the 
Sabbath and the Temple, under the hieroglyphic figure of 
Baphomet or the Androgyne of Mendes. All this will be 
proved. 

Such are the secrets of occult philosophy, such is magic 
in history; let us now glance at it as it appears in its books 
and its achievements, in its initiations and its rites. The 
key of all magical allegories is found in the tablets we have 
already mentioned, and these tablets we regard as the work 
of Hermes. About this book, which may be called the 
keystone of the whole edifice of occult science, are grouped 
innumerable legends which are either its partial translation 
or its commentary renewed endlessly under a thousand dif¬ 
ferent forms. Sometimes these ingenious fables combine 
harmoniously into a great epic which characterises an epoch, 
though how or why is not clear to the uninitiated. Thus, 
the fabulous history of the Golden Fleece both resumes and 
veils the Hermetic and magical doctrines of Orpheus, and if 
we recur only to the mysterious poetry of Greece, it is be¬ 
cause the sanctuaries of Egypt and India to some extent dis¬ 
may us by their resources, and leave our choice embarrassed 
in the midst of such abundant wealth. We are eager, more¬ 
over, to reach the Theba'id at once, that dread synthesis of 
all doctrine, past, present, and future, that, so to speak, in¬ 
finite fable, which comprehends, like the Deity of Orpheus, 
the two extremities of the cycle of human life. Extraordi¬ 
nary fact! The seven gates of Thebes, attacked and de¬ 
fended by seven chiefs who have sworn upon the blood of 
victims, possess the same significance as the seven seals of 
the sacred book interpreted by seven genii, and assailed by 
a monster with seven heads, after being opened by a living 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


15 


yet immolated lamb, in the allegorical work of St. John. 
The mysterious origin of Oedipus, found suspended from 
the tree of Cytheron like a bleeding fruit, recalls the sym¬ 
bols of Moses and the narratives of Genesis. He makes war 
upon his father, whom he slays without knowing—alarming 
prophecy of the blind emancipation of reason without 
science; he then meets with the sphinx—the sphinx, that 
symbol of symbols, the eternal enigma of the vulgar, the 
granite pedestal of the science of the sages, the voracious 
and silent monster whose invariable form expresses the one 
dogma of the great universal mystery. How is the tetrad 
changed into the duad and explained by the triad ? In more 
common but more emblematic terms, what is that animal 
which in the morning has four feet, two at noon, and three 
in the evening? Philosophically speaking, how does the 
doctrine of elementary forces produce the dualism of Zo¬ 
roaster, while it is summed by the triad of Pythagoras and 
Plato ? What is the ultimate reason of allegories and num¬ 
bers, the final message of all symbolisms? Oedipus replies 
with a simple and terrible word which destroys the sphinx 
and makes the diviner King of Thebes; the answer to the 
enigma is Man! . . . Unfortunate! He has seen too 

much, and yet with insufficient clearness; he must presently 
expiate his calamitous and imperfect clairvoyance by a vol¬ 
untary blindness, and then vanish in the midst of a storm, 
like all civilisations which may at any time divine the answer 
to the riddle of the sphinx without grasping its whole im¬ 
port and mystery. Everything is symbolical and trans¬ 
cendental in this titanic epic of human destinies. The two 
hostile brethren express the second part of the grand mys¬ 
tery divinely completed by the sacrifice of Antigone; then 
comes the last war; the brethren slay one another, Capaneus 
is destroyed by the lightning which he defies, Amphiaraiis 
is swallowed by the earth, and all these are so many alle¬ 
gories which, by their truth and their grandeur, astonish 
those who can penetrate their triple hieratic sense. H^schy- 
lus, annotated by Ballanche, gives only a weak notion con- 


16 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


cerning them, whatever the primeval sublimities of the Greek 
poet or the beauty of the French critic. 

The secret book of antique initation was not unknown to 
Homer, wTio outlines its plan and chief figures on the shield 
of Achilles, with minute precision. But the gracious fictions 
of Homer replaced speedily in the popular memory the sim¬ 
ple and abstract truths of primeval revelation. Humanity 
clung to the form and allowed the idea to be forgotten; 
signs lost power in their multiplication; magic also at this 
period became corrupted, and degenerated with the sorcerers 
of Thessaly into the most profane enchantments. The crime 
of Oedipus brought forth its deadly fruits, and the science 
of good and evil erected evil into a sacrilegious divinity. 
Men, weary of the light, took refuge in the shadow of bodily 
substance; the dream of the void, which is filled by God, 
soon appeared to be greater than God himself in their eyes, 
and thus hell w r as created. 

When, in the course of this work, we make use of the 
consecrated terms God, Heaven, and Hell, let it be thor¬ 
oughly understood, once for all, that our meaning is as far 
removed from that which the profane attach to them as ini¬ 
tiation is distant from vulgar thought. God, for us, is the 
Azot of the sages, the efficient and final principle of the 
great work. 

Returning to the fable of Oedipus, the crime of the King 
of Thebes was that he failed to understand the sphinx, that 
he destroyed the scourge of Thebes without being pure 
enough to complete the expiation in the name of his people. 
The plague, in consequence, avenged speedily the death of 
the monster, and the King of Thebes, forced to abdicate, 
sacrificed himself to the terrible names of the sphinx, more 
alive and voracious than ever when it had passed from the 
domain of form into that of idea. Oedipus divined what 
was man and he put out his own eyes because he did not 
see what w r as God. He divulged half of the great arcanum, 
and, to save his people, it was necessary for him to bear 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


17 


the remaining half of the terrible secret into exile and the 
tomb. 

After the colossal fable of Oedipus we find the gracious 
poem of Psyche, which was certainly not invented by 
Apuleius. The great magical arcanum reappears here un¬ 
der the figure of a mysterious union between a god and a 
weak mortal abandoned alone and naked on a rock. Psyche 
must remain in ignorance of the secret of her ideal royalty, 
and if she behold her husband she must lose him. Here 
Apuleius commentates and interprets Moses, but did not 
the Elohim of Israel and the gods of Apuleius both issue 
from the sanctuaries of Memphis and Thebes? Psyche is 
the sister of Eve, or, rather, is Eve spiritualised. Both 
desire to know and lose innocence for the honour of the 
ordeal. Both deserve to go down into hell, one to bring 
back the antique box of Pandora, the other to find and to 
crush the head of the old serpent, who is the symbol of time 
and of evil. Both are guilty of the crime which must be 
expiated by the Prometheus of ancient days and the Luci¬ 
fer of the Christian legend, the one delivered, the other 
overcome, by Hercules and by the Saviour. The great 
magical secret is, therefore, the lamp and dagger of Psyche, 
the apple of Eve, the sacred fire of Prometheus, the burning 
sceptre of Lucifer, but it is also the holy cross of the Re¬ 
deemer. To be acquainted w r ith it sufficiently to abuse or 
divulge it is to deserve all sufferings; to know it as one 
should know it, namely, to make use of and conceal it, is 
to be master of the absolute. 

Everything is contained in a single word, which consists 
of four letters; it is the Tetragram of the Hebrews, the 
Azot of the alchemists, the Thot of the Bohemians, or 
the Taro of the Kabbalists. This word, expressed after so 
many manners, means God for the profane, man for the 
philosophers, and imparts to the adepts the final word of 
human sciences and the key of divine power; but he only 
can use it who understands the necessity of never revealing 
it. Had Oedipus, instead of killing the sphinx, overcome 


18 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


it, harnessed it to his chariot, and thus entered Theb6s, he 
would have been king without incest, without misfortunes, 
and without exile. Had Psyche, by meekness and affection, 
persuaded Love to reveal himself, she would never have lost 
Love. Now, Love is one of the mythological images of the 
great secret and the great agent, because it at once expresses 
an action and a passion, a void and a plenitude, a shaft and 
a wound. The initiates will understand me, and, on account 
of the profane, I must not speak more clearly. 

After the marvellous Golden Ass of Apuleius, we find no 
more magical epics. Science, conquered in Alexandria by 
the fanaticism of the murderers of Hypatia, became Chris¬ 
tian, or, rather, concealed itself under Christian veils with 
Ammonius, Synesius, and the pseudonymous author of the 
books of Dionysius the Areopagite. In such times it was 
needful to excuse miracles by the garb of superstition and 
science by an unintelligible language. Hieroglyphic writing 
was revived; pantacles and characters were invented to 
summarise an entire doctrine by a sign, a whole sequence 
of tendencies and revelations in a word. What was the end 
of the aspirants to knowledge ? They sought the secret of 
the great work, or the philosophical stone, or the perpetual 
motion, or the quadrature of the circle, or the universal 
medicine—formulas which often saved them from persecu¬ 
tion and hatred by causing them to be taxed with madness, 
and all signifying one of the phases of the great magical 
secret, as we shall shew later on. This absence of epics 
continues till our Romance of the Rose; but the rose-symbol, 
which expresses also the mysterious and magical sense of 
Dante’s poem, is borrowed from the transcendent Kabbalah, 
and it is time that we should have recourse to this immense 
and concealed source of universal philosophy. 

The Bible, with all its allegories, gives expression to the 
religious knowledge of the Hebrews in only an incomplete 
and veiled manner. The book which we have mentioned, 
the hieratic characters of which we shall explain subse¬ 
quently, that book which William Postel names the Genesis 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


19 


of Enoch, certainly existed before Moses and the prophets, 
whose doctrine, fundamentally identical with that of the 
ancient Egyptians, had also its exotericism and its veils. 
When Moses spoke to the people, says the sacred book al¬ 
legorically, he placed a veil over his face, and he removed 
it when addressing God; this accounts for the alleged Bib¬ 
lical absurdities which so exercised the satirical powers of 
Voltaire. The books were only writen as memorials of 
tradition, and in symbols that were unintelligible for the 
profane. The Pentateuch and the poems of the prophets 
were, moreover, elementary works, alike in doctrine, eth¬ 
ics, and liturgy; the true secret and traditional philos¬ 
ophy was not committed to writing until a later period, 
and under veils even less transparent. Thus arose a second 
and unknown Bible, or rather one which was not compre¬ 
hended by Christians, a storehouse, so they say, of monstrous 
absurdities, for, in this case, believers, confounded in the 
same ignorance, speak the language of sceptics; a monu¬ 
ment, as we affirm, which comprises all that philosophical 
genius and religious genius have ever accomplished or imag¬ 
ined in the order of the sublime; a treasure encompassed by 
thorns; a diamond concealed in a rude and opaque stone: 
our readers will have already guessed that we refer to the 
Talmud. How strange is the destiny of the Jews, those 
scapegoats, martyrs, and saviours of the world, a people 
full of vitality, a bold and hardy race, which persecutions 
have always preserved intact, because it has not yet accom¬ 
plished its mission! Do not our apostolical traditions de¬ 
clare that, after the decline of faith among the Gentiles, sal¬ 
vation shall again come forth out of the house of Jacob, and 
that then the crucified Jew who is adored by the Christians 
will give the empire of the world into the hands of God his 
Father ? 

On penetrating into the sanctuary of the Kabbalah one 
is seized with admiration at the sight of a doctrine so logi¬ 
cal, so simple, and, at the same time, so absolute. The es¬ 
sential union of ideas and signs; the consecration of the 


20 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


most fundamental realities by primitive characters; the trin¬ 
ity of words, letters, and numbers; a philisophy simple as 
the alphabet, profound and infinite as the Word; theorems 
more complete and luminous than those of Pythagoras; a 
theology which may be summed up on the fingers; an infinite 
which can be held in the hollow of an infant’s hand; ten 
figures and twenty-two letters, a triangle, a square, and a 
circle; these are the entire elements of the Kabbalah. These 
are the component principles of the written Word, reflec¬ 
tion of that spoken Word which created the world! All 
truly dogmatic religions have issued from the Kabbalah and 
return therein; whatsoever is grand or scientific in the re¬ 
ligious dreams of all the illuminated, Jacob Boehme, Swed¬ 
enborg, Saint Martin, &c., is borrowed from the Kabbalah; 
all masonic associations owe to it their secrets and their sym¬ 
bols. The Kabbalah alone consecrates the alliance of univer¬ 
sal reason and the divine Word; it establishes, by the coun¬ 
terpoise of two forces apparently opposed, the eternal bal¬ 
ance of being; it only reconciles reason with faith, power 
with liberty, science with mystery; it has the keys of the 
present, past and future! 

To become initiated into the Kabbalah, it is insufficient 
to read and to meditate upon the writings of Reuchlin, 
Galatinus, Kircher, or Picus de Mirandola; it is necessary 
to study and to understand the Hebrew writers in the col¬ 
lection of Pistorius, the Septer Jetzirah above all; it is nec¬ 
essary also to master the great book Zohar, read attentively 
in the collection of 1684, entitled Kabbala Denudata, the 
treatise of Kabbalistic Pneumatics, and that of the Revolu¬ 
tion of Souls; and afterwards to enter boldly into the lumi¬ 
nous darkness of the whole dogmatic and allegorical body 
of the Talmud. Then we shall be in a position to under¬ 
stand William Postel, and can admit secretly that apart 
from his very premature and over-generous dreams about 
the emancipation of women, this celebrated, learned, illumi¬ 
nated man could not have been so mad as is pretended by 
those who have not read him. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


21 


We have sketched rapidly the history of occult philoso¬ 
phy ; we have indicated its sources and analysed in a few 
words its principal books. This work refers only to the 
science, but magic, or, rather, magical power, is composed 
of two things, a science and a force; without the force the 
science is nothing, or, rather, it is a danger. To give knowl¬ 
edge to power alone, such is the supreme law of initiations. 
Hence did the Great Revealer say : 11 The kingdom of heaven 
suff ereth violence, and the violent only shall carry it away.’ 9 
The door of truth is closed like the sanctuary of a virgin; he 
must be a man who would enter. All miracles are pro¬ 
mised to faith, and what is faith except the audacity of a 
will which does not hesitate in the darkness, but advances 
towards the light in spite of all ordeals, and surmounting all 
obstacles? It is unnecessary to repeat here the history of 
ancient initiations; the more dangerous and terrible they 
were, the greater was their efficacy. Hence, in those days, 
the world had men to govern and instruct it. The sacerdotal 
art and the royal art consisted above all in ordeals of 
courage, discretion, and will. It was a novitiate similar to 
that of those priests who, under the name of Jesuits, are so 
unpopular at the present day, but would govern the world, 
notwithstanding, had they a truly wise and intelligent chief. 

After passing our life in the search after the absolute in 
religion, science, and justice; after turning in the circle of 
Faust, we have reached the primal doctrine and the first 
book of humanity. There we pause, there we have discov¬ 
ered the. secret of human omnipotence and indefinite prog¬ 
ress, the key of all symbolisms, the first and final doctrine, 
and we have come to understand what was meant by that 
expression so often made use of in the Gospel—the King¬ 
dom of God. 

To provide a fixed point as a fulcrum for human activity 
is to solve the problem of Archimedes by realising the ap¬ 
plication of his famous lever. This it is which was accom¬ 
plished by the great initators who have electrified the world, 
and they could not have done so except by means of the 


22 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


great and incommunicable secret. However, as a guarantee 
of its renewed youth, the symbolical phoenix never reap¬ 
peared before the eyes of the world without having solemnly 
consumed the remains and evidences of his previous life. It 
is thus that Moses caused all those to perish in the desert 
who could have known Egypt and her mysteries; thus, at 
Ephesus, St. Paul burnt all books which treated of the oc¬ 
cult sciences; thus, finally, the French Revolution, daughter 
of the great Johannite Orient and the ashes of the Tem¬ 
plars, spoliated the churches and blasphemed the allegories 
of the divine cultus. But all doctrines and all revivals pro¬ 
scribe magic, and condemn its mysteries to the flames and 
to oblivion. The reason is that each cultus or philosophy 
which comes into the world is a Benjamin of humanity which 
lives by the death of its mother; it is because the symbolical 
serpent seems ever devouring its own tail; it is because, as 
essential condition of existence, a void is necessary to every 
plenitude, space for every dimension, an affirmation for 
each negation; it is the eternal realisation of the phoenix 
allegory. 

Two illustrious scholars have already preceded me along 
the path I am travelling, but they have, so to speak, spent 
the dark night therein. I refer to Yolney, and Dupuis, to 
Dupuis above all, whose immense erudition has produced 
only a negative work, for in the origin of all religions he 
has seen nothing but astronomy, taking thus the symbolic 
cycle for doctrine and the calendar for legend. He was 
deficient in one branch of knowledge, that of true magic, 
which comprises the secrets of the Kabbalah. Dupuis passed 
through the antique sanctuaries like the prophet Ezekiel 
over the plain strewn with bones, and only understood 
death, for want of that word which collects the virtue of 
the four winds, and can make a living people of all the vast 
ossuary, by crying to the ancient symbols: “Arise! Take up 
a new form and walk! ’ ’ Hence the hour has come when 
we must have the boldness to attempt what no one has dared 
to perform previously. Like Julian, we would rebuild the 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


23 


temple, and in so doing we do not believe that we shall be 
belying a wisdom that we adore, which also Julian would 
himself have been worthy to adore, had the rancorous and 
fanatical doctors of his period permitted him to understand 
it. For us the temple has two pillars, on one of which Chris¬ 
tianity has inscribed its name. We have, therefore, no wish 
to attack Christianity; far from it, we seek to explain and 
accomplish it. Intelligence and will have alternately exer¬ 
cised their pow T er in the world; religion and philosophy are 
still at war in our own days, but they must end by agreeing. 
The provisional object of Christianity was to establish, by 
obedience and faith, a supernatural or religious equality 
among men, and to immobilise intelligence by faith, so as 
to provide a fulcrum for virtue which came for the destruc¬ 
tion of the aristocracy of science, or rather, to replace that 
aristocracy already destroyed. Philosophy, on the contrary, 
has laboured to bring back men by liberty and reason to 
natural inequality, and to substitute astuteness for virtue by 
inaugurating the reign of industry. Neither of the two 
operations has proved complete and adequate, neither has 
brought men to perfection and felicity. What is now 
dreamed, almost without daring to hope for it, is an alliance 
between these two forces so long regarded as contrary, and 
there is good ground for desiring their union, for these two 
great powers of the human soul are no more opposed to one 
another than the sex of man is opposed to that of woman; 
undoubtedly they differ, but their apparently contrary dis¬ 
positions come only from their aptitude to meet and unite. 

* ‘ There is no less proposed, therefore, than an universal 
solution of all problems ? ’ ’ 

No doubt, since we are concerned with explaining the 
philosophical stone, perpetual motion, the secret of the great 
work and of the universal medicine. We shall be accused 
of insanity, like the divine Paracelsus, or of charlatanism, 
like the great and unfortunate Agrippa. If the pyre of 
Urban Grandier be extinguished, the sullen proscriptions of 
silence and of calumny remain. We do not brave but are 


24 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


resigned to them. We have not sought ourselves the pub¬ 
lication of this book, and we believe that if the time be come 
to produce speech, it will be produced by us or by others. 
We shall therefore remain calm and wait. 

Our work has two parts; in the one we establish the 
Kabbalistic and magical doctrine in its entirety; the other 
is consecrated to the cultus, that is, to ceremonial magic. 
The one is that which the ancient sages termed the clavicle, 
the other that which rural people still call the grimoire. 
The numbers and subjects of the chapters, which correspond 
in both parts, are in no sense arbitrary, and are all indicated 
in the great universal key, of which we give for the first 
time a complete and adequate explanation. Let this work 
now go its way where it wills, and become what Providence 
determines; it is finished, and we believe it to be enduring, 
because it is strong, like all that is reasonable and 
conscientious. 


ELIPHAS LEVI. 


















The 


Doctrine of Transcendent Magic 


1 x A 

THE CANDIDATE 

DISCIPLINA ENSOPH KETER 

When a philosopher adopted as the basis for a new apoca¬ 
lypse of human wisdom the axiom: ‘‘I think, therefore I 
am/’ in a measure he unconsciously altered, from the stand¬ 
point of Christian revelation, the old conception of the Su¬ 
preme Being. I am that I am, said the Being of beings of 
Moses. I am he who thinks, says the man of Descartes, and 
to think being to speak inwardly, this man may affirm like 
the God of St. John the Evangelist: I am he in whom and 
by whom the word manifests —In principio erat verbum. 
Now, what is a principle ? It is a groundwork of speech, it 
is a reason for the existence of the word. The essence of 
the word is in the principle; the principle is that which is; 
intelligence is a principle which speaks. What, further, is 
intellectual light? It is speech. What is revelation? It 
is also speech; being is the principle, speech is the means, 
and the plenitude or development and perfection of being is 
the end. To speak is to create. But to say: ‘ ‘ I think, there¬ 
fore I exist,” is to argue from consequence to principle, 
and certain contradictions which have been adduced by a 
great writer, Lamennais, have abundantly proved the philo¬ 
sophical imperfection of this method. I am, therefore some¬ 
thing exists—would appear to us a more primitive and sim- 

27 



28 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


pie foundation for experimental philosophy. I am, there¬ 
fore being exists. Ego sum qui sum —such is the first reve¬ 
lation of God in man and of man in the world, while it is 

also the first axiom of occult philosophy. NtSHKiTH 
Being is being. Hence this philosophy, having that 
which is for its principle, is in no sense hypothesis or guess¬ 
work. 

Mercurius Trismegistus begins his admirable symbol, 
known under the name of the Emerald Table, by this three¬ 
fold affirmation: It is true, it is certain without error, it is 
of all truth. Thus, in physics, the true confirmed by ex¬ 
perience ; in philosophy, certitude purged from any alloy of 
error; in the domain of religion or the infinite, absolute 
truth indicated by analogy; such are the first necessities of 
true science, and magic only can impart these to its adepts. 

But you, before all things, who are you, thus taking this 
work in your hands and proposing to read it? On the 
pediment of a temple consecrated by antiquity to the God 
of Light was an inscription of two words: “Know thyself.” 
I impress the same counsel on every man when he seeks to 
approach science. Magic, which the men of old denominated 
the sanctum regnum, the holy kingdom, or kingdom of God, 
regnum Dei, exists only for kings and for priests. Are you 
priests? Are you kings? The priesthood of magic is not 
a vulgar priesthood, and its royalty enters not into competi¬ 
tion with the princes of this world. The monarchs of science 
are the priests of truth, and their sovereignty is hidden from 
the multitude like their prayers and sacrifices. The kings 
of science are men who know the truth and the truth has 
made free, according to the specific promise given by the 
most mighty of the initiators. 

The man who is enslaved by his passions or worldly pre¬ 
judices can in no wise be initiated; he must alter or he will 
never attain; hence he cannot be an adept, for the word 
signifies a person who has attained by will and by work. 
The man who loves his own opinions and fears to part with 
them, who suspects new truths, who is unprepared to doubt 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


29 


everything rather than admit anything on chance, should 
close this book; for him it is useless and dangerous; he will 
fail to understand it, and it will trouble him, while if he 
should divine its meaning, it will be a still greater source of 
disquietude. If you hold by anything in the world more 
than by reason, truth, and justice; if your will be uncertain 
and vacillating, either in good or evil; if logic alarm you, 
or the naked truth make you blush; if you are hurt when 
accepted errors are assailed; condemn this work straight 
away; do not read it; let it cease to exist for you; but at 
the same time do not cry it down as dangerous. The secrets 
which it records will be understood by an elect few, and 
will be held back by those who understand them. Shew 
light to the birds of the night-time, and you hide their light; 
it is the light which blinds them, and for them is more dark 
than the darkness. I shall therefore speak clearly and make 
known everything, with the firm conviction that initiates 
alone, or those who deserve initiation, will read all and 
understand in part. 

There is a true and a false science, a divine magic and 
an infernal magic—in other words, one which is delusive 
and darksome; it is our task to reveal the one and to un¬ 
veil the other, to distinguish the magician from the sorcerer, 
and the adept from the charlatan. The magician avails 
himself of a force which he knows, the sorcerer seeks to 
abuse a force which he does not understand. If it be 
possible in a scientific work to employ a term so vulgar and 
so discredited, then the devil gives himself to the magician 
and the sorcerer gives himself to the devil. The magician 
is the sovereign pontiff of nature, the sorcerer is her pro- 
faner only. The sorcerer bears the same relation to the 
magician that a superstitious and fanatical person bears to 
a truly religious man. 

Before advancing further let us tersely define magic. 
Magic is the traditional science of the secrets of nature 
which has been transmitted to us from the magi. By means 
of this science the adept becomes invested with a species 


30 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


of relative omnipotence and can operate superhumanly— 
that is, after a manner which transcends the normal pos¬ 
sibility of men. Thereby many celebrated hierophants, 
such as Mercurius Trismegistus, Osiris, Orpheus, Apol¬ 
lonius of Tyana, and others whom it might be danger¬ 
ous or unwise to iname, came after their death to be adored 
and invoked as gods. Thereby others also, according to 
that ebb-and-flow of opinion which is responsible for the 
caprices of success, became emissaries of infernus or sus¬ 
pected adventures, like the emperor Julian, Apuleius, the 
enchanter Merlin, and that arch-sorcerer, as he was termed 
in his day, the illustrious and unfortunate Cornelius 
Agrippa. 

To attain the sanctum regnnm, in other words, the 
knowledge and power of the magi, there are four indis¬ 
pensable conditions—an intelligence illuminated by study, 
an intrepidity which nothing can check, a will which noth¬ 
ing can break, and a discretion which nothing can corrupt 
and nothing intoxicate. To know, to dare, to will, to 
keep silence —such are the four words of the magus, in¬ 
scribed upon the four symbolical forms of the sphinx. 
These four words can be combined after four manners, and 
explained four times by one another.* 

On the first page of the Book of Hermes the adept 
is depicted with a large hat, which, if turned down, would 
conceal his entire head. One hand is extended towards 
heaven, which he seems to command with his rod, while 
the other is placed upon his breast; before him are the chief 
symbols or instruments of science, and he has others hid¬ 
den in a juggler’s wallet. His body and arms form the let¬ 
ter Aleph, the first of the alphabet which the Jews bor¬ 
rowed from the Egyptians; to this symbol we shall have 
occasion to recur later on. 

The magus is truly what the Hebrew Kabbalists call the 
Microprosopus, that is, the creator of the little world. The 


* See the Tarot cards. 



TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


31 


first of all magical sciences being the knowledge of one’s 
self, so is one’s own creation first of all works of science; 
it contains the others, and is the principle of the great 
work. The term, however, requires explanation. Supreme 
reason being the sole invariable and consequently imperish¬ 
able principle—what we term death being change—hence 
the intelligence which cleaves closely to this principle and, 
in a manner, identifies itself therewith, does hereby make 
itself unchangeable, and, as a result, immortal. To cleave 
invariably to reason, it will be understood that it is neces¬ 
sary to attain independence of all those forces which by 
their fatal and inevitable movement produce the alternatives 
of life and death. To know how to suffer, to forbear, and to 
die—such are the first secrets which place us beyond reach 
of affliction, the desires of the flesh, and the fear of annihila¬ 
tion. The man who seeks and finds a glorious death has 
faith in immortality and universal humanity believes in it 
with him and for him, raising altars and statues to his 
memory in token of eternal life. 

Man becomes king of the brutes only by subduing or 
taming them; otherwise he will be their victim or slave. 
Brutes are the type of our passions; they are the instinctive 
forces of nature. The world is a field of battle where liberty 
struggles with inertia by the opposition of active force. 
Physical laws are millstones; if you cannot be the miller 
you must be the grain. You are called to be king of 
the air, water, earth, and fire; but to reign over these four 
animals of symbolism, it is necessary to conquer and en¬ 
chain them. He who aspires to be a sage and to know the 
great enigma of nature must be the heir and despoiler of 
the sphinx; his the human head in order to possess speech, 
his the eagle’s wings in order to scale the heights; his the 
bull’s flanks in order to furrow the depths, his the lion’s 
talons to make a way on the right and the left, before and 
behind. 

You, therefore, who seek initiation, are you learned as 
Faust? Are you insensible as Job? No, is it not so? 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 



But you may become equal to both if you will. Have you 
overcome the vortices of vague thoughts ? Are you without 
indecision or capriciousness? Do you consent to pleasure 
only when you will, and do you wish for it only when you 
should? No, is it not so? Not invariably at least, but 
it may become so if you choose. The sphinx has not only a 
man’s head, it has woman’s breasts; do you know how to 
resist feminine charms? No, is it not so? And you laugh 
outright in replying, vaunting your moral weakness for the 
glorification of your physical and vital force. Be it so; I 
allow you to render this homage to the ass of Sterne or 
Apuleius. The ass has its merit, I agree; it was consecrated 
to Priapus as was the goat to the god of Mendes. But 
take it for what it is worth, and decide whether ass or man 
shall be master. (He alone can possess truly the pleasure 
of love who has conquered the love of pleasure. To be 
able and to forbear is to be twice able. Woman enchains 
you by your desires; master your desires and you will en¬ 
chain her. J The greatest injury that can be inflicted on a 
man is to call him a coward. Now, what is a cowardly 
person? One who neglects his moral dignity in order to 
obey blindly the instincts of nature. As a fact, in the 
presence of danger it is natural to be afraid and seek flight; 
why, then, is it shameful? Because honour has erected it 
into a law that we must prefer our duty to our inclinations 
or fears. What is honour from this point of view? It is 
universal presentience of immortality and appreciation of 
the means which can lead to it. The last trophy which 
man can* win from death is to triumph over the appetite for 
life, not by despair, but by a more exalted hope, which is 
contained in faith, for all that is noble and honest, by the 
undivided consent of the world. To learn self-conquest is 
therefore to learn life, and the austerities of stoicism were 
no vain parade of freedom! To yield to the forces of 
nature is to follow the stream of collective life, and to be 
the slave of secondary causes. To resist and subdue nature 
is to make one’s self a personal and imperishable life; it is 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


33 


to break free from the vicissitudes of life and death. Every 
man who is prepared to die rather than renounce truth and 
justice is most truly living, for immortality abides in his 
soul. To find or to form such men was the end of all 
ancient initiations. Pythagoras disciplined his pupils by 
silence and all kinds of self-denial; candidates in Egypt 
were tried by the four elements; and we know the self- 
inflicted austerities of fakirs and brahmans in India for 
attaining the kingdom of free will and divine independence. 
All macerations of asceticism are borrowed from the initia¬ 
tions of ancient mysteries; they have ceased because those 
qualified for initiation, no longer finding initiators, and 
the leaders of conscience becoming in the lapse of time 
as uninstructed as the vulgar, the blind have grown weary 
of following the blind, and no one has cared to pass through 
ordeals the end of which was now only in doubt and des¬ 
pair; for the path of light was lost. To succeed in per¬ 
forming something we must know what it is proposed to do, 
or at least must have faith in some one who does know it. 
But shall I stake my life on a venture, or follow someone at 
chance who himself knows not where he is going? 

We must not set out rashly along the path of the trans¬ 
cendent sciences, but, once started, we must reach the end 
or perish. To doubt, is to become a fool; to pause is to 
fall; to recoil is to cast one’s self into an abyss. You, 
therefore, who are undertaking the study of this book, if 
you persevere with it to the close and understand it, it will 
make you either a monarch or a madman. Do what you 
will with the volume, you will be unable to despise or to 
forget it. If you are pure, it will be your light; if strong, 
your arm; if holy, your religion; if wise, the rule of your 
wisdom. But if you are wicked, for you it will be an 
infernal torch; it will lacerate your breast like a poniard; 
it will rankle in your memory like a remorse; it will people 
your imagination with chimeras, and will drive you through 
folly to despair. You will endeavour to laugh at it, and 
will only gnash your teeth; this book will be the file in the 


34 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


fable which the serpent tried to bite, but it destroyed all his 
teeth. 

Let us now enter on the series of initiations. I have 
said that revelation is the word. As a fact, the word, or 
speech, is the veil of being and the characteristic sign of 
life. Every form is the veil of a word, because the idea 
which is the mother of the word is the sole reason for the 
existence of forms. Every figure is a character, every char¬ 
acter derives from and returns into a word. For this reason 
the ancient sages, of whom Trismegistus is the organ, formu¬ 
lated their sole dogma in these terms:—“That which is 
above is like that which is below, and that which is below 
is like that which is above.” In other words, the form is 
proportional to the idea; the shadow is the measure of the 
body calculated with its relation to the luminous ray; the 
scabbard is as deep as the sword is long; the negation is 
in proportion to the contrary affirmation; production is 
equal to destruction in the movement which preserves life; 
and there is no point in infinite space which may not be 
regarded as the centre of a circle having an extending 
circumference indefinitely receding into space. , Every in¬ 
dividuality is, therefore, indefinitely perfectible, since the 
moral order is analogous to the physical, and since we 
cannot conceive any point as unable to dilate, increase, and 
radiate in a philosophically infinite circle. What can be 
affirmed of the soul in its totality may be affirmed of each 
faculty of the soul. The intelligence and will of man are 
instruments of incalculable power and capacity. But in¬ 
telligence and will possess as their help-mate and instrument 
a faculty which is too imperfectly known, the omnipotence 
of which belongs exclusively to the domain of magic. I 
speak of the imagination, which the Kabbalists term the 
Diaphane, or the Translucid. Imagination, in effect, is like 
the souFs eye; therein forms are outlined and preserved; 
thereby we behold the reflections of the invisible world; it 
is the glass of visions and the apparatus of magical life; by 
its intervention we heal diseases, modify the seasons, drive 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


35 


death away from the living, and raise the dead to life, be¬ 
cause it is the imagination which exalts the will and gives 
it a hold upon the universal agent. Imagination determines 
the shape of the child in its mother’s womb, and decides 
the destiny of men; it lends wings to contagion, and directs 
the weapons of warfare. Are you exposed in battle ? 
Believe yourself to be invulnerable, like Achilles, and you 
will be so, says Paracelsus. Fear attracts bullets, but they \ 
are repelled by courage. It is well known that persons with 
amputated limbs feel pain in the very members which they 
possess no longer. Paracelsus operated upon living blood by 
medicating the product of a bleeding; he cured headache 
at a distance by treating hair cut from the patient. By 
the science of the imaginary unity and solidarity of all 
parts of the body, he anticipated and outstripped all the 
theories, or rather all the experiences, of our most celebrated 
magnetisers. Hence his cures were miraculous, and to his 
name of Philip Theophrastus Bombast, he deserved the ad¬ 
dition of Aureolus Paracelsus, with the further epithet of 
divine! 

Imagination is the instrument of the adaptation of the 
word. Imagination applied to reason is genius. Reason is 
one, as genius is one, in the multiplicity of its works. There 
is one principle, there is one truth, there is one reason, 
there is one absolute and universal philosophy. Whatso¬ 
ever is subsists in unity considered as beginning, and re¬ 
turns into unity considered as end. One is in one; that is to 
say, all is in all. Unity is the principle of numbers; it is 
also the principle of motion, and, consequently, of life. The 
entire human body is summed up in the unity of a single 
organ, which is the brain. All religions are summed up in 
the unity of a single dogma, which is the affirmation of 
being and its equality with itself, which constitutes its 
mathematical value. There is only one dogma in magic, and 
it is this:—The visible is the manifestation of the invisible, 
or, in other terms, the perfect word, in things appreciable 
and visible, bears an exact proportion to the things which 
are inappreciable by our senses and unseen by our eyes. 


36 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


The magus uplifts one hand towards heaven and points 
down the other to earth, and he says: “Above, immensity: 
Below, immensity still! Immensity equals immensity.”— 
This is true in things seen as in things unseen. 

The first letter in the alphabet of the sacred language, 
Aleph, N, represents a man extending one hand towards 
heaven and the other to earth. It is an expression of the 
active principle in everything; it is creation in heaven 
corresponding to the omnipotence of the word below. This 
letter is a pantacle in itself, that is, a character expressing 
the universal science. It is supplementary to the sacred 
signs of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm; it explains the 
masonic double-triangle and the five-pointed blazing star; 
for the word is one and revelation is one. By endowing 
man with reason, God gave him speech; and revelation, 
manifold in its forms but one in its principle, consists 
entirely in the universal word, the interpreter of the ab¬ 
solute reason. This is the significance of that term so much 
misconstrued, catholicity, which, in modern hieratic lan¬ 
guage, means infallibility. The universal in reason is the 
absolute, and the absolute is the infallible. If absolute 
reason impelled universal society to believe irresistibly the 
utterance of a child, that child would be infallible by the 
ordination of God and of all humanity. Faith is nothing 
else but reasonable confidence in this unity of reason and in 
this universality of the word. To believe is to place con¬ 
fidence in that which we as yet do not know when reason 
assures us beforehand of ultimately knowing or at least 
recognising it. Absurd are the so-called philosophers who 
cry, ‘ ‘ I will never believe in a thing which I do not know !’ 9 
Shallow reasoners! If you knew, would you need to believe ? 

But must I believe on chance, and apart from reason? 
Certainly not. Blind and haphazard belief is superstition 
and folly. We may believe in causes which reason compels 
us to admit on the evidence of effects known and appre¬ 
ciated by science. Science! Great word and great prob¬ 
lem! What is science? We shall answer in the second 
chapter of this book. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


37 


THE PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE 

CHOCHMAH DOMUS GNOSIS 

Science is the absolute and complete possession of truth. 
Hence have the sages of all the centuries trembled before 
such an absolute and terrible word; they have hesitated to 
arrogate to themselves the first privilege of divinity by 
assuming the possession of science, and have been contented, 
instead of the verb to know , with that which expresses 
cognisance, while, instead of the word science , they have 
adopted that of gnosis, which represents simply the notion 
of learning by intuition. What, in fact, does man know? 
Nothing, and at the same time he is allowed to ignore noth¬ 
ing. Devoid of knowledge, he is called upon to know all. 
Now, knowledge supposes the duad—a being who knows and 
an object known. The duad is the generator of society 
and of law; it is also the number of the gnosis. The duad 
is unity multiplying itself in order to create, and hence in 
sacred symbolism Eve issues from the inmost bosom of 
Adam. Adam is the human tetragram, summed up in the 
mysterious Jod, type of the Kabbalistic phallus. By add¬ 
ing to this Jod the triadic name of Eve, the name of Jehova 
is formed, which is eminently the Kabbalistic and magical 
word, which the high-priest in the temple pronounced 
Jodcheva. So unity complete in the fruitfulness of the 
triad forms therewith the tetrad, which is the key of all 
numbers, of all movements, and of all forms. By a revo¬ 
lution about its own centre, the square produces a circle 
equal to itself, and this is the quadrature of the circle, the 
circular movement of four equal angles around the same 
point. 

“That which is above equals that which is below,’’ says 
Hermes. Here then is the duad serving as the measure of 



38 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


unity, and the relation of equality between above and below 
forms with these the triad. The created principle is the 
ideal phallus; the created principle is the formal eteis. 
The insertion of the vertical phallus into the horizontal eteis 
forms the stauros of the Gnostics, or the philosophical cross 
of masons. Thus, the intersection of two produces four, 
which, by its movement, defines the circle with all degrees 
thereof. 

^ is man; ^ is woman; 1 is the principle; 2 is the 
word; A is the active; B is the passive; the monad is 
Bohas; the duad is Jakin. In the trigrams of Fohi, unity 
is the yang and the duad is the yin. 



yang yin 


Bohas and Jakin are the names of the two symbolical pillars 
without the chief door of Solomon’s Kabbalistic temple. 
In the Kabbalah these pillars explain all mysteries of an¬ 
tagonism, whether natural, political, or religious, and they 
explain also the procreative struggle between the man and 
the woman, for, according to the law of nature, the woman 
must resist the man, and he must entice or overcome her. 
The active principle seeks the passive principle, the plenum 
desires the void, the serpent’s jaw attracts the serpent’s 
tail, and in turning upon himself, he, at the same time, 
flies and pursues himself. Woman is the creation of man, 
and universal creation is the bride of the First Principle. 

When the Supreme Being became a creator, he erected a 
jod or a phallus, and to provide a place in the fulness of 
the uncreated light, it was necessary to hollow out a eteis or 
trench of shadow equivalent to the dimension determined 
by his creative desire, and attributed by him to the ideal 
jod of the radiating light. Such is the mysterious language 
of the Kabbalists in the Talmud, and on account of vulgar 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


39 


ignorance and malignity, it is impossible for us to explain 
or simplify it further. What then, is the creation ? It is 
the mansion of the creative Word. What is the cteis? It 
is the mansion of the phallus. What is the nature of the 
active principle? To diffuse. What is that of the passive? 
To gather in and to fructify. What it man? He who 
initiates, who bruises, who labours, who sows. What is 
woman? She who forms, reunites, irrigates, and harvests. 
Man wages war, woman brings peace about; man destroys 
to create, woman builds up to preserve; man is revolution, 
woman is conciliation; man is the father of Cain, woman 
the mother of Abel. What, moreover, is wisdom? It is 
the agreement and union of two principles, the mildness of 
Abel directing the activity of Cain, man guided by the 
sweet inspirations of woman, debauchery conquered by law¬ 
ful marriage, revolutionary energy softened and subdued 
by the gentleness of order and peace, pride subjugated by 
love, science acknowledging the inspirations of faith. Then 
human science becomes wise, and submits itself to the infal¬ 
libility of universal reason, instructed by love or universal 
charity. Then it can take the name of gnosis, because it 
knows at least thatl as yet it cannot boast of knowing 
perfectly. 

The monad can only manifest by the duad; unity itself 
and the notion of unity at once constitute two. The unity 
of the Macrocosm reveals itself by the two opposite points 
of two triangles. Human unity fulfils itself to right and 
left. Primitive man is androgynous. All organs of the 
human body are disposed in pairs, excepting the nose, the 
tongue, the unbilicus, and the Kabbalistic jod. Divinity, 
one in its essence, has two essential conditions as the funda¬ 
mental grounds of its being—necessity and liberty. The 
laws of supreme reason necessitate and rule liberty in God, 
who is of necessity wise and reasonable. 

To make light visible God has merely hypotheticated the 
shadow. To manifest the truth he has permitted the 
possibility of doubt. The shadow bodies forth the light, 


40 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 



and the possibility of error is requisite for the temporal 
manifestation of truth. If the buckler of Satan did not 
intercept the spear of Michael, the might of the angel would 
be lost in the void or manifested by infinite destruction 
launched below from above. Did not the heel of Michael 
restrain Satan in his ascent, Satan would dethrone God, or 
rather he would lose himself in the abysses of the altitude. 
Hence Satan is needful do Michael as the pedestal to the 
statue, and Michael is necessary to Satan as the brake to 
the locomotive. In analogical and universal dynamics one 
leans only on that which resists,. Furthermore, the universe 
is balanced by two forces which maintain it in equilibrium, 
the force which attracts and that which repels. They exist 
alike in physics, in philosophy, and in religion; in physics 
they produce equilibrium, in philosophy criticism, in re¬ 
ligion progressive revelation. The ancients represented this 
mystery in the conflict between Eros and Anteros, the 
struggle between Jacob and the angel, and by the equilib¬ 
rium of the golden mountain, which gods on the one side 
and demons on the other hold bound by the symbolic serpent 
of India. It is also typified by the caduceus of Ilermanubis, 
by the two cherubim of the ark, by the twofold sphinx of 
the chariot of Osiris, and by the two seraphim, respectively 
black and white. Its scientific reality is demonstrated by 









TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


41 


the phenomena of polarity, and by the universal law of 
sympathies or antipathies. 

The undiscerning disciples of Zoroaster divided the duad 
without referring it to unity, thus separating the pillars of 
the temple, and endeavouring to halve God. Conceive the 
absolute as two, and you must immediately conceive it as 
three to recover the unity principle. For this reason, the 
material elements, analogous to the divine elements, are 
understood firstly as four, explained as two, and exist 
ultimately as three. 

Revelation is the duad; every word is double, and sup¬ 
poses two. The ethic which results from revelation is 
founded on antagonism, which results from the duad. 
Spirit and form attract and repel one another, like sign 
and idea, fiction and truth. Supreme reason necessitates 
dogma when communicating to finite intelligences, and 
dogma, by its passage from the domain of ideas to that 
of forms, participates in two worlds, and has inevitably two 
senses speaking in succession or simultaneously, that is, to 
the spirit and the flesh. So are there two forces in the 
moral region, one which assaults and one which curbs and 
expiates. They are represented in the mythos of Genesis 
by the typical personalities of Cain and Abel. Abel 
oppresses Cain by reason of his moral superiority; Cain 
to get free immortalises his brother by slaying him, and 
becomes the victim of his own crime. Cain could not suffer 
the life of Abel, and the blood of Abel suffers not the sleep 
of Cain. In the Gospel the type of Cain is replaced by 
that of the Prodigal Son, whom his father fully forgives 
because he returns after having endured much. 

There is mercy and there is justice in God; to the just 
He dispenses justice and to sinners mercy. In the soul of 
the world, which is the universal agent, there is a current 
of love and a current of wrath. This ambient and all- 
penetrating fluid; this ray loosened from the sun’s splen¬ 
dour, and fixed by the weight of the atmosphere and the 
power of central attraction; this body of the Holy Spirit, 






42 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


which we term the universal agent, while it was typified by 
the ancients under the symbol of a serpent devouring his 
tail? this electro-magnetic ether, this vital and lumious 
caloric, is depicted in archaic monuments by the girdle of 
Isis, twice-folded in a love-knot round two poles, as well as 
by the serpent devouring his own tail, emblematic of pru¬ 
dence and of Saturn. Motion and life consist in the ex¬ 
treme tension of two forces. “I would thou wert cold or 
hot,” said the Master. As a fact, a great sinner is more 
really alive than is a tepid, effeminate man, and the fulness 
of his return to virtue will be in proportion to the extent 
of his errors. She who is destined to crush the serpent’s 
head is intelligence, which ever rises above the stream of 
blind forces. The Kabbalists call her the virgin of the sea, 
whose dripping feet the infernal dragon, stupefied by de¬ 
light, craws forward to lick with his fiery tongues. These 
are the hieratic mysteries of the duad. But there is one, 
and the last of all, which must not be made known, the 
reason, according to Hermes Trismegistus, being the mal- 
comprehension of the vulgar, who would ascribe to the neces¬ 
sities of science the immoral aspect of blind fatality. ‘ ‘ By 
the fear of the unknown must the crowd be restrained, ’ ’ he 
observes in another place, and Christ also said: “Cast not 
your pearls before swine, lest, trampling them under their 
feet, they turn and rend you. ’ ’ The tree of the knowledge 
of good and evil, of which the fruits are death, is the type 
of this hieratic secret of the duad, which could only be 
misconstrued if divulged, and would lead commonly to the 
unholy denial of free will, which is the principle of moral 
life. It is hence in the essence of things that the revelation 
of this secret means death, and it is not at the same time 
the great secret of magic; but the arcanum of the duad 
leads up to that of the tetrad, or more correctly proceeds 
therefrom, and is resolved by the triad, which contains 
the word of the enigma propounded by the sphinx, as it was 
required to have been found in order to save the life, atone 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


43 


for the unconscious crime, and establish the Kingdom of 
CEdipus. 

In the hieroglyphic work of Hermes, the Tarot, called also 
the book of Thoth, the duad is represented either by the 
horns of Isis, having her head veiled and an open book 
partially concealed under her mantle, or otherwise by a 
sovereign lady, Juno, the Greek goddess, having one hand 
uplifted towards heaven and the other pointed to earth, as 
if formulating by this gesture the one and twofold dogma 
which is the foundation of magic, and begins the marvellous 
symbols of the Emerald Table of Hermes. In the Apoca¬ 
lypse of St John there is a refemce to two witnesses or 
martyrs on whom prophetic tradition confers the names of 
Elias and Enoch—Elias, man of faith, enthusiasm, miracle; 
Enoch one with him who is called Hermes by the Egyptians, 
honoured by the Phoenicians as Cadmus, author of the 
sacred alphabet, and the universal key to the initiations of 
the Logos, father of the Kabbalah, he who, according to the 
sacred allegories, did not die like other men, but was trans¬ 
ported to heaven, to return at the end of time. Much the 
same statement is made of St John himself, who recovered 
and explained in his Apocalypse the symbolism of the word 
of Enoch. This resurrection of St John and Enoch, ex¬ 
pected at the close of the ages of ignorance, will be the 
restitution of their doctrine by the comprehension of the 
Kabbalistic keys which unlock the temple of unity and 
universal philosophy, too long occult, and reserved solely 
for the elect, who perish at the hands of the world. 

But we have said that the reproduction of the monad by 
the duad leads of necessity to the conception and dogma of 
the triad, so we come now to this great number, which is 
the fulness and perfect word of unity. 


44 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


3 : G 

THE TRIANGLE OF SOLOMON 

PLENITUDO VOCUS BINAH PHYSIS 

The perfect word is the triad, because it supposes an in¬ 
telligent principle, a speaking principle, and a principle 
spoken. The absolute, revealing itself by speech, endows 
this speech with a sense equivalent to itself, and in the 
understanding thereof creates itself a third time. Thus, 
also, the sun manifests itself by its light, and proves or 
makes this manifestation efficacious by heat. 

The triad is traced in space by the heavenly zenith, the 
infinite height, connected with east and west by two straight 
diverging lines. With this visible triangle reason compares 
another which is invisible, but is assumed to be equal in 
dimension; the abyss is its apex and its reversed base is 
parallel to the horizontal line stretching from east to west, 
these two triangles, combined in a single figure, which is 
the six-pointed star, form the sacred symbol of Solomon’s 
seal, the resplendent star of the Macrocosm. The notion 
of the infinite and the absolute is expressed by this sign, 
which is the grand pantacle—that is to say, the most 
simple and complete abridgment of the science of all 
things. 

Grammar itself attributes three persons to the verb. The 
first is that which speaks, the second that which is spoken 
to, and the third the object. In creating, the Infinite Prince 
speaks to himself of himself. Such is the explanation of 
the triad and the origin of the dogma of the Trinity. The 
magical dogma is also one in three and three in one. That 
which is above is like or equal to that which is below. Thus, 
two things which resemble one another and the word which 
signifies their resemblance make three. The triad is the 
universal dogma. In magic—principle, realisation, adapta- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


45 


tion; in alchemy—azoth, incorporation, transmutation; in 
theology—God, incarnation, redemption; in the human soul 
—thought, love and action; in the family—father, mother, 
and child. The triad is the end and supreme expression of 
love; we seek one another as two only to become three. 

There are three intelligible worlds which correspond one 
with another by hierarchic analogy; the natural or physical, 
the spiritual or metaphysical, and the divine or religious 
worlds. From this principle follows the hierarchy of spirits, 
divided into three orders, and again subdivided by the 
triad in each of these three orders. 

All these revelations are logical deductions from the first 
mathematical notions of being and number. Unity must 
multiply itself in order to become active. An indivisible, 
motionless, and sterile principle would be unity dead and 
incomprehensible. Were God only one He would never be 
creator or father. Were he two there would be antagonism 
or division in the infinite, which would mean the division 
also or death of all possible things. He is therefore three 
for the creation by Himself and in His image of the infinite 
multitude of beings and numbers. So is He truly one in 
Himself and triple in our conception, which also brings us 
to behold him as triple in Himself and one in our intelli¬ 
gence and our love. This is a mystery for the faithful, and 
a logical necessity for the initiate into the absolute and real 
sciences. 

The Word manifested by life is realisation or incarnation. 
The life of the Word accomplishing its cyclic movement is 
adaptation or redemption. This triple dogma was known 
in all sanctuaries illuminated by the tradition of the sages. 
Do you wish to ascertain which is the true religion? Seek 
that which realises most in the divine order, which hu¬ 
manises God and makes man divine, which preserves the 
triadic dogma intact, which clothes the Word with flesh by 
making God manifest to the hands and eyes of the most 
ignorant, which finally is by its doctrine suitable to all and 
can adapt itself to all—the religion which is hierarchic and 


46 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


cyclic, having allegories and images for children, an exalted 
philosophy for grown men, sublime hopes and sweet con¬ 
solations for the old. 

The primeval sages, when seeking the First of Causes, 
beheld good and evil in the world; they considered the 
shadow and the light; they compared winter with spring, 
age with youth, life with death, and their conclusion was 
this: The First Cause is beneficent and severe; it gives 
and takes away life. Then are there two contrary prin¬ 
ciples, the one good and the other evil, exclaimed the dis¬ 
ciples of Manes. No, the two principles of universal equilib¬ 
rium are not contrary, although contrasted in appearance, 
for a singular wisdom opposes one to another. Good is on 
the right, evil on the left, but the supreme excellence is 
above both, applying evil to the victory of good and good 
to the amendment of evil. 

The principle of harmony is in unity, and it is this which 
imparts such power to the uneven number in magic. Now, 
the most perfect of the odd numbers is three, because it is 
the trilogy of unity. In the trigrams of Fohi, the superior 
triad is composed of three yang, or masculine figures, be¬ 
cause nothing passive can be admitted into the idea of God, 
considered as the principle of production in the three worlds. 
For the same reason, the Christian trinity by no means 
permits the personification of the mother, who is implicitly 
included in that of the son. For the same reason, also, it 
is contrary to the laws of hieratic and orthodox symbology 
to personify the Holy Ghost under the form of a woman. 
Woman comes forth from man as nature comes forth from 
God; so Christ ascends Himself to heaven, and assumes the 
Virgin Mother: we speak of the ascension of the Saviour, 
and the assumption of the Mother of God. God, considered 
as Father, has nature for his daughter; as Son, He has the 
Virgin for His mother and the Church for His bride; as 
Holy Spirit, He regenerates and fructifies humanity. 
Hence, in the trigrams of Fohi, the three inferior yin cor¬ 
respond to the three superior yang, for these trigrams con- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


47 


stitnte a pantacle like that of the two triangles of Solomon, 
but with a triadic interpretation of the six points of the 
blazing star. 


Dogma is only divine inasmuch as it is truly human— 
that is to say, in so far as it sums up the highest reason of 
humanity; so also the Master, whom we term the Man- 
God, called Himself the Son of Man. Revelation is the 
expression of belief accepted and formulated by universal 
reason in the human word, on which account it is said that 
the divinity is human and the humanity divine in the Man- 
God. We affirm all this philosophically, not theologically, 

without infringing in any way on the teaching of the 
Church, which condemns, and must always condemn, magic. 
Paracelsus and Agrippa did not set up altar against altar, 
but bowed to the ruling religion of their time; to the elect 
of science, the things of science; to the faithful, the things 
of faith. 

In his hymn to the royal Sun, the Emperor Julian gives 
a theory of the triad which is almost identical with that of 
the illuminated Swedenborg. The sun of the divine world 
is the infinite, spiritual, and uncreated light, which is ver¬ 
balised, so to speak, in the philosophical world, and be¬ 
comes the fountain of souls and of truth; then it incor¬ 
porates and becomes visible light in the sun of the third 
world, the central sun of our suns, of which the fixed stars 
are the ever-living sparkles. The Kabbalists compare the 
spirit to a substance which remains fluid in the divine 
medium, and under the influence of the essential light, its 
exterior, however, becoming solidified, like wax, when ex¬ 
posed to the air in the colder realms of reasoning oy of 
visible forms. These shells, envelopes petrified or cami- 
fied, were such an expression possible, are the source of 
errors or of evil which connect with the heaviness and 








48 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


hardness of the animal envelopes. In the book “Zohar,” 
and in that of the “Revolution of Souls,” perverse spirits 
or evil demons are never named otherwise than as shells— 
cortices. The cortices of the world of spirits are trans¬ 
parent, while those of the material world! are opaque. 
Bodies are only temporary shells, whence souls have to be 
liberated; but those which in this life obey the body com¬ 
pose for themselves an interior body or fluidic shell, which, 
after death, becomes their prison-house and torment, until 
the time arrives when they succeed in dissolving it in the 
warmth of the divine light, towards which, however, the 
burden of their grossness hinders them from ascending. 
Indeed, they can do so only after infinite struggles, and 
by the mediation of the just, who stretch forth their hands 
towards them. During the whole period of the process 
they are devoured by the interior activity of the captive 
spirit, as in a burning furnace. Those who attain the 
pyre of expiation burn themselves thereon, like Hercules 
upon Mount Etna, and so are delivered from their suffer¬ 
ings, but the courage of the majority fails before this or¬ 
deal, which seems to them a second death more appalling 
than the first, and so they remain in hell, which is, rightly 
and actually, eternal; but therein souls are never precipi¬ 
tated, nor are they ever retained despite themselves. 

The three worlds correspond together by means of the 
thirty-two paths of light which are the steps of the sacred 
ladder; every true thought corresponds to a divine grace in 
heaven and a good work on earth; every grace of God 
manifests a truth, and produces one or many acts; recipro¬ 
cally, every act affects a truth or falsehood in the heavens, 
a grace or a punishment. When a man pronounces the 
tetragram—say, the Kabbalists—the nine heavens sustain 
a shock, and then all spirits cry out one upon another: 
“Who is it thus disturbing the kingdom of heaven?” 
Then does the earth communicate unto the first heaven 
the sins of the rash being who takes the Eternal Name 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


49 


in vain, and the accusing word is transmitted from circle to 
circle, from star to star, and from hierarchy to hierarchy. 

Every speech possesses three senses, every act has a triple 
bearing, every form a triple idea, for the absolute cor¬ 
responds from world to world by its forms. Every de¬ 
termination of human will modifies nature, affects philo¬ 
sophy, and is written in heaven. There are therefore two 
fatalities, the one resulting from the Uncreated Will in its 
accord with wisdom, the other from created wills according 
with the necessity of secondary causes in their correspon¬ 
dence with the First Cause. There is hence nothing in¬ 
different in life, and our apparently most simple resolutions 
frequently determine an incalculable series of benefits or 
evils, above all in the affinities of our diaphane with the 
great magical agent, as w T e shall explain elsewhere. 

The triad, being the fundamental principle of the whole 
Kabbalah, or sacred tradition of our fathers, was necessarily 
the fundamental dogma of Christianity, the apparent dual¬ 
ism of which it explains by the intervention of a har¬ 
monious and all-powerful unity. Christ did not put his 
teaching into writing, and only revealed it in secret to his 
favoured disciple, the one kabbalist, and he a great kab- 
balist, among the apostles. So is the apocalypse the book of 
\ the gnosis or secret doctrine of the first Christians, the key 
of which doctrine is indicated by an occult versicle of the 
Lord’s Prayer, which the Vulgate leaves untranslated, while 
in the Greek rite, which preserves the traditions of St John, 
the priests only are permitted to pronounce it. This ver¬ 
sicle, completely kabbalistic, is found in the text of the 
Gospel according to St Matthew, and in several Hebrew 
copies. The sacred word Malchuth substituted for Kether, 
which is its kabbalistic correspondent, and the balance of 
Geburah and Chesed, repeating itself in the circles or 
heavens called eons by the Gnostics, provide the keystone of 
the whole Christian temple in this occult versicle. It has 
been retained by Protestants in their New Testament, with¬ 
out their recovering its lofty and wonderful meaning, which 



50 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


would have unveiled to them all the mysteries of the apoca¬ 
lypse. But it is a tradition in the Church that the mani¬ 
festation of these mysteries is held over to the last times. 

Malchuth, based upon Geburah and Chesed, is the temple 
of Solomon having Jakin and Bohas for its pillars; it is the 
adamic doctrine founded, for the one part, on the resigna¬ 
tion of Abel and, for the other, on the labours and self- 
reproach of Cain; it is the equilibrium of being established 
on necessity and liberty, stability and motion; it is the 
demonstration of the universal lever sought in vain by 
Archimedes. A scholar whose whole talents were employed 
in being obscure, who died without seeking to be understood, 
resolved this supreme equation, discovered by him in the 
Kabbalah, and was in dread of its source transpiring if he 
expressed himself more clearly. We have seen one of his 
disciples and admirers most indignant, perhaps in good 
faith, at the suggestion that his master was a Kabbalist, 
but we can state notwithstanding, to the glory of the same 
learned man, that his researches have appreciably shortened 
our work in the occult sciences, and that the key of the 
transcendent Kabbalah above all, indicated in the arcane 
versicle recently cited, has been skilfully applied to an ab¬ 
solute reform of all the sciences in the books of Hoene 
Wronski. 

The secret virtue of the gospels is therefore contained 
in three words, and these three words have established 
three dogmas and three hierarchies. All science reposes 
upon three principles, as the syllogism upon three terms. 
There are also three distinct classes, or three original and 
natural ranks, among men, who are called to advance from 
the lower to the higher. The Jews term these three series 
or degrees in the progress of spirits, Asiah, Jetzirah, and 
Briah. The Gnostics, who were Christian Kabbalists, called 
them Hyle, Psyche, and Gnosis; by the Jews the supreme 
circle was named Atziluth, and by the Gnostics Pleroma. 
In the tetragram, the triad, taken at the beginning of the 
Word, expresses the divine copulation; taken at the end, 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


51 


it expresses the female and maternity. Eve has a name of 
three letters, but the primitive Adam is signified simply 
by the letter Jod, whence Jehovah should be pronounced 
Jeva, and this point takes us to the great and supreme 
mystery of magic, embodied in the tetrad. 


52 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


THE TETRAGRAM 

GEBURAH CHESED PORTA LIBRORUM ELEMENTA 

In nature there are two forces producing equilibrium, and 
these three constitute a single law. Here, then, is the triad 
resumed in unity, and by adding the conception of unity to 
that of the triad we are brought to the tetrad, the first 
square and perfect number, the source of all numerical com¬ 
binations and the principle of all forms. Affirmation, nega¬ 
tion, discussion, solution, such are the four philosophical 
operations of the human mind. Discussion conciliates nega¬ 
tion with affirmation by rendering them necessary to each 
other. In the same way, the philosophical triad, emanat¬ 
ing from the antagonism of the duad, is completed by 
the tetrad, the four-square ground of all truth. According 
to the consecrated dogma, there are three persons in God, 
and these three constitute only one Deity. Three and one 
provide the conception of four, because unity is required 
to explain the three. Hence, in almost all languages, the 
name of God consists of four letters, and in Hebrew these 
four are really three, one of them being repeated twice, that 
which expresses the Word and the creation of the Word. 

Two affirmations make two corresponding denials either 
possible or necessary. Being is declared, nothing is not. 
The affirmation as Word produces affirmation as realisation 
or incarnation of the Word, and each of these affirmations 
corresponds to the denial of its opposite. Thus, in the 
opinion of the kabbalists, the name of the demon or of evil 
is composed of the same letters as the name of God or good¬ 
ness, but spelt backwards. This evil is the last reflection 
or imperfect mirage of light in shadow. But all which 
exists, whether of good or evil, in light or darkness, exists 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


53 


and manifests by the tetrad. The affirmation of unity sup¬ 
poses the number four, unless it turns in unity itself as in a 
vicious circle. So also the triad, as we have already ob¬ 
served, is explained by the duad and resolved by the tetrad, 
which is the squared unity of even numbers and the quad¬ 
rangular base of the cube, unity of construction, of solidity, 
and of measure. 

The kabbalistic tetragram, Jodheva, expresses God in 
humanity and humanity in God. The four astronomical 
cardinal points are, relatively to us, the yea and the nay of 
light—east and west—and the yea and nay of warmth—- 
south and north. As we have already said, according to the 
sole dogma of the Kabbalah, that which is in visible nature 
reveals that which is in the domain of invisible nature, or 
secondary causes are in strict proportion and analogous to 
the manifestations of the First Cause. So is this First 
Cause invariably revealed by the cross—that unity made up 
of two, that key to the mysteries of India and Egypt, the 
Tau of the patriarchs, the divine sign of Osiris, the Stauros 
of the Gnostics, the keystone of the temple, the symbol of 
occult masonry; the cross, central point of the junction of 
the right angles of two infinite triangles ; the cross, which 
in the French language seems to be the first root and funda¬ 
mental substantive of the verb to believe and the verb to 
grow, thus combining the conceptions of science, religion-, 
and progress. 

The great magic agent manifests by four kinds of phe¬ 
nomena, and has been subjected to the experiments of pro¬ 
fane science under four names—caloric, light, electricity, 
magnetism. It has also received the names of Tetragram, 
Inri, Azoth, Ether, Od, Magnetic Fluid, Soul of the Earth, 
Lucifer, &c. The great magic agent in the fourth emana¬ 
tion of the life-principle, of which the sun is the third 
form—see the initiates of the school of Alexandria and the 
dogma of Hermes Trismegistus. In this way the eye of the 
world, as the ancients called it, is the mirage of the reflec¬ 
tion of God, and the soul of the earth is a permanent glance 




54 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


of the sun which the earth conceives and guards by im¬ 
pregnation. The moon concurs in this impregnation of the 
earth by reflecting a solar image during the night, so that 
Hermes was right when he said of the great agent: ‘ ‘ The sun 
is its father, the moon its mother. ’ ’ Then he adds: ‘ ‘ The 
wind has borne it in the belly thereof, ’ ’ because the atmos¬ 
phere is the recipient, and, as it were, the crucible of the 
solar rays, by means of which there forms that living image 
of the sun which penetrates the whole earth, fructifies it, 
and determines all that is produced at its surface by its 
emanations and permanent currents, analogous to those of 
the sun itself. This solar agent subsists by two contrary 
forces—one of attraction and one of projection, whence 
Hermes says that it ascends and descends eternally. The 
force of attraction is always fixed at the centre of bodies, 
that of projection in their outlines or at their surface. By 
this dual force all is created and all preserved. Its motion 
is a rolling up and an unrolling which is successive and 
indefinite, or, rather, simultaneous and perpetual, by spirals 
of opposite movements which never meet. It is the same 
movement as that of the sun, which attracts and repels 
at once all the planets of its system. To be acquainted 
with the movement of this terrestrial sun in such a manner 
as to be able to take advantage of its currents and direct 
them, is to have accomplished the great work and to be 
master of the world. Armed with such a force you may 
make yourself adored; the crowd will believe you are God. 

The absolute secret of this direction has been in the 
possession of certain men, and can yet be discovered. It is 
the great magical arcanum, depending on an incommu¬ 
nicable axiom and on an instrument which is the great 
and unique athanor of the highest grade of Hermetists. 
The incommunicable axiom is kabbalistically enclosed in the 
four letters of the tetragram arranged in the following 
manner:— 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


55 



in the letters of the words AZOTH and INRI written kab- 
balistically; and in the monogram of Christ as embroidered 
on the labarum, which the Kabbalist Postel interprets by 
the word ROTA, whence the adepts have formed their Taro 
or Tarot, by the repetition of the first letter, thus indicat¬ 
ing the circle, and suggesting that the word is put back¬ 
wards. All magical science is comprised in the knowledge 
of this secret. To know it and have the courage to use it is 
human omnipotence; to reveal it to a profane person is to 
lose it; to reveal it even to a disciple is to abdicate in 
favour of that disciple, who, henceforward, possesses the 
right of life and death over his master—I am speaking 
from the magical standpoint—and will certainly slay him 
for fear of dying himself. But this has nothing in common 
with deeds qualified as murder in criminal legislation; the 
practical philosophy which is the basis and point of de¬ 
parture for our laws does not recognize the facts of be¬ 
witchment and of occult influences. We touch here upon 
extraordinary revelations, and are prepared for the unbelief 
and derision of incredulous fanaticism; voltairean religion 
has also its fanatics, pace the great shades who must now 
be lurking sullenly in the vaults of the Pantheon, while 










56 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


Catholicism, strong ever in its practices and prestige, chants 
the office overhead. 

The perfect word, that which is adequate to the thought 
which it expresses, always virtually contains or supposes a 
tetrad: the idea, with its three necessary and correlated 
forms, then the image of the thing expressed, with the three 
terms of the judgment which qualifies it. When I say: 
“Beings exists,” I affirm implicitly that the void is non¬ 
existent. A height, a breadth which the height sub-divides 
longitudinally, a depth separated from the height by the 
intersection of the breadth, such is the natural tetrad com¬ 
posed of two lines at right angles one to another. Nature 
also has four motions produced by two forces which sustain 
each other by their tendency in an opposite direction. Now, 
the law which rules bodies is analogous to that which 
governs minds, and that which governs minds is the very 
manifestation of God’s secret—that is to say, of the mys¬ 
tery of the creation. Imagine a watch having two parallel 
springs, with an engagement which makes them work in an 
opposite direction so that the one in unwinding winds up 
the other. In this way, the watch will wind up itself, and 
you will have discovered perpetual motion. The engage¬ 
ment should be at two ends and of extreme accuracy. Is 
this beyond attainment? We think not. But when it is 
found out the inventor will understand by analogy all the 
secrets of nature —progress in direct proportion to the re¬ 
sistance. The absolute movement of life is thus the per¬ 
petual consequence of two contrary tendencies which are 
never opposed. When one seems to yield to the other, it is 
a spring which is winding up, and you may expect a re¬ 
action, the moment and characteristics of which it is quite 
possible to foresee and determine. Hence at the period of 
the most extreme Christian fervour was the reign of Anti¬ 
christ known and predicted. But Antichrist will prepare 
and determine the second advent and final triumph of the 
Man-God. This again is a vigorous and kabbalistical con¬ 
clusion contained in the Gospel premises. Hence the Chris- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


57 


tian prophecy comprises a fourfold revelation: 1. Fall 

of the old world and triumph of the Gospel under the 
first advent; 2. Great apostasy and coming of Antichrist; 

3. Fall of Antichrist and recurrence to Christian ideas; 

4. Definitive triumph of the Gospel, or Second Advent, 
designated under the name of the Last Judgment. This 
fourfold prophecy contains, as will be seen, two affirmations 
and two negations, the idea of two ruins or universal deaths 
and of two resurrections; for to every conception which ap¬ 
pears upon the social horizon an east and a west, a zenith 
and a nadir, may be ascribed without fear of error. Thus 
is the philosophical cross the key of prophecy, and all 
gates of science may be opened with the pantacle of Eze¬ 
kiel, the centre of which is a star formed by the interlace¬ 
ment of two crosses. 



Does not human life present itself also under these four 
phases or successive transformations—birth, life, death, im¬ 
mortality? And remark here that the immortality of the 
soul, necessitated as a complement of the tetrad, is kab- 
balistically proved by analogy, which is the sole dogma of 
truly universal religion, as it is the key of science and the 
universal law of nature. As a fact, death can be no more 
an absolute end than birth is a real beginning. Birth 
proves the pre-existence of the humon being, since nothing 
is produced from nothing, and death proves immortality, 
since being can no more cease to be being than nothingness 
can cease to be nothingness. Being and nothingness are 
two absolutely irreconcileable ideas, with this difference, that 
the idea of nothingness, which is altogether negative, issues 




58 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


from the idea itself of being, whence nothingness cannot 
even be understood as an absolute negation, whilst the 
notion of being can never be referred to that of nothingness, 
and still less can it come forth therefrom. To say that the 
world has been produced out of nothing is to advance a 

monstrous absurdity. All that is proceeds from what has 

# 

been, and consequently nothing that is can ever more cease 
to be. The succession of forms is produced by the alterna¬ 
tives of movement; they are the phenomena of life which 
replace one another without destroying themselves. All 
things change; nothing perishes. The sun does not die 
when it vanishes from the horizon; even the most fluidic 
forms are immortal, subsisting always in the permanence of 
their raison d’etre, which is the combination of the light 
with the aggregated potences of the molecules of the first 
substance. Hence they are preserved in the astral fluid, 
and can be evoked and reproduced according to the will of 
the sage, as we shall see when treating of second sight and 
the evocation of memories in necromancy or other magical 
works. We shall return to the great magical agent in the 
fourth chapter of the Ritual, where we shall complete our 
indications of the characteristics of the great arcanum, and 
of the means of recovering this tremendous power. 

Here let us add some words about the four magical 
elements and elementary spirits. The magical elements are: 
in alchemy, salt, sulphur, mercury, and azoth; in Kabbalah, 
the macroprosopus, the microprosopus, and the two mothers; 
in hieroglyphics, the man, eagle, lion, and bull; in old 
physics, according to vulgar names and notions, air, water, 
earth, and fire. But in magical science we know that water 
is not ordinary water, fire is not simply fire, &c. These 
expressions conceal a more recondite meaning. Modem 
science has decomposed the four elements of the ancients, 
and reduced them to a number of so-called simple bodies. 
That which is simple, however, is the primitive substance 
properly so-called; there is therefore only one material 
element, which always manifests by the tetrad in its forms. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


59 


We shall therefore preserve the wise distinction of element¬ 
ary appearances admitted by the ancients, and shall recog¬ 
nise air, fire, earth, and water as the four positive and visible 
elements of magic. 

The subtle and the gross, the swift and slow dissolvent, 
or the instruments of heat and cold, constitute, in occult 
physics, the two positive and negative principles of the 
tetrad, and should be thus tabulated 


Azoth. 

Eagle. 

Air. 


Sulphur. 

Lion. 

Fire. 



Mercury 

Man. 

Water. 


Salt. 

Bull. 

Earth. 

Thus, air and earth represent the male principle * fire and 
water are referable to the female principle, since the philo¬ 
sophical cross of pantacles, as already affirmed, is a primitive 
and elementary hieroglyph of the lingam of the gymno- 
sophists. To these four elementary forms correspond the 
four following philosophical ideas—Spirit, Matter, Motion, 
Rest. As a fact, all science is comprised in the understand¬ 
ing of these four things, which alchemy has reduced to three 
—the Absolute, the Fixed, and the Volatile—referred by 
the Kabbalah to the essential idea of God, who is absolute 
reason, necessity, and liberty, a threefold notion expressed 
in the occult books of the Hebrews. Under the names of 
Kether, Chochmah, and Binah for the divine world; of 
Tiphereth, Chesed, and Geburah in the moral world; and 





60 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


of Jesod, Hod, and Netsah in the physical world, which 
together with the moral, is contained in the idea of the 
Kingdom or Malchuth, we shall explain in the tenth chapter 
this theogony as rational as it is sublime. 

Now, created spirits, being called to emancipation by 
ordeal, are placed from their birth between these four forces, 
two positive and two negative, and have it in their power to 
affirm or deny good, to choose life or death. To discover 
the fixed point, that is, the fixed centre of the cross, is the 
first problem which is given them to resolve; their initial 
conquest must be that of their own liberty. They begin by 
being drawn, some to the north, others to the south; some 
to the right, others to the left; and in so far as they are 
not free, they cannot have the use of reason, nor can they 
take flesh otherwise than in animal forms. These unemanci¬ 
pated spirits, slaves of the four elements, are those which the 
kabbalists call elementary daimons, and they people the 
elements which correspond to their state of servitude. 
Sylphs, undines, gnomes, and salamanders therefore really 
exist, some wandering and seeking incarnation, others in¬ 
carnate and living on this earth. These are vicious and im¬ 
perfect men. We shall return to this subject in the fifteenth 
chapter, which treats of enchantments and demons. 

That is also an occult tradition by which the ancients 
were led to admit the existence of four ages in the world, 
only it was not made known to the vulgar that these ages 
were successive and were renewed, like the four seasons of 
the year. Thus, the golden age has passed, and it is yet to 
come. This, however, belongs to the spirit of prophecy, and 
we shall speak of it in the ninth chapter, which is concerned 
with the initiate and the seer. If we now add the idea of 
unity to the tetrad, we shall have, together and separately, 
the conceptions of the divine synthesis and analysis, the god 
of the initiates and that of the profane. Here the doctrine 
becomes more popular, and passes from the domain of the 
abstract; the grand hierophant intervenes. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


61 


5 - E 

n 

THE PENTAGRAM 

GEBURAH ECCE 


1 2 



Hereunto we have exposed the magical dogma in its more 
arid and abstract phases; now enchantments begin; now 
we can proclaim wonders and reveal the most secret things. 
The pentagram signifies the domination of the mind over 
the elements, and by this sign are enchained the demons of 
the air, the spirits of fire, the phantoms of the water, and 
ghosts of earth. Equipped with this sign, and suitably dis¬ 
posed, you may behold the infinite through the medium of 
that faculty which is like the soul’s eye, and you will be 
ministered unto by legions of angels and hosts of fiends. 

And now, in the first place, let us establish certain prin¬ 
ciples. There is no invisible world; there are, however, 
many degrees of perfection in organs. The body is the 





62 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


coarse and, as it were, the perishable cortex of the soul. 
The soul can perceive of itself, and independently of the 
mediation of the physical organs, by means of its sensibility 
and its diaphane, the things, both spiritual and corporal, 
which are existent in the universe. Spiritual and corporal 
are simply terms which express the degrees of tenuity or 
density in substance. What is called the imagination within 
us is only the soul’s inherent faculty of assimilating the 
images and reflections contained in the living light, which 
is the great magnetic agent. These images and reflections 
are revelations when science intervenes to reveal us their 
body or light. The man of genius differs from the dreamer 
and the fool in this only, that his creations are analogous 
to truth, while those of the fool and the dreamer are lost 
reflections and bewrayed images. Hence, for the wise man, 
to imagine is to see, as, for the magician, to speak is to 
create. Therefore, by means of the imagination, demons 
and spirits can be beheld really and in truth; but the 
imagination of the adept is diaphanous, whilst that of the 
crowd is opaque; the light of truth traverses the one as 
ordinary light passes through a transparent casement, and 
is refracted by the other as when the ordinary light falls 
upon a vitreous block full of scoria and foreign matter. 
That which most contributes to the errors of the vulgar is 
the reflection of depraved imaginations one in the other. 
But the seer, by a positive science, knows that what he im¬ 
agines is true, and the event invariably confirms his vision. 
We shall state in the Ritual after what manner this lucidity 
can be acquired. 

It is by means of this light that static visionaries place 
themselves in communication with all worlds, as so fre¬ 
quently occurred to Swedenborg, who, notwithstanding, was 
imperfectly lucid, seeing that he did not distinguish re¬ 
flections from rays, and often intermingled chimerical 
fancies with his most admirable dreams. We say dreams, 
because dream is the consequence of a natural and peri¬ 
odical ecstasy, which we term sleep; to be in acstasy is to 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


63 


sleep; magnetic somnambulism is a production and direc¬ 
tion of sleep. The errors which occur therein are occasioned 
by reflections from the diaphane of waking persons, and, 
above all, of the magnetiser. Dream is vision produced 
by the refraction of a ray of truth. The chimerical fantasy 
is hallucination occasioned by a reflection. The temptation 
of St Anthony, with its nightmares and its monsters, repre¬ 
sents the confusion of reflections with direct rays. So long 
as the soul struggles it is reasonable; when it yields to this 
specie, of invading intoxication it becomes mad. To dis¬ 
entangle the direct ray, and separate it from the reflection 
—such is the work of the initiate. Here let us state dis¬ 
tinctly that this work is through all times accomplished 
in the world by some of the flower of mankind, that there 
is hence a permanent revelation by intuition, and that 
there is no insuperable barrier which separates souls, be¬ 
cause there are no sudden interruptions, and no abrupt 
walls in nature by which minds can be divided from one 
another. All is transition and blending, and, assuming the 
perfectibility, if not infinite, at least indefinite, of human 
faculties, it will be seen that every person can attain to 
see all, and therefore to know all. There is no void in 
nature; all is peopled. There is no true death in nature; 
all is alive. “Seest thou that star?” asked Napoleon of 
Cardinal Feseh. “No, Sire.” “I see it,” said the Em¬ 
peror, and he most certainly did. When great men are ac¬ 
cused of having been superstitious, it is because they be¬ 
held what remains unseen by the crowd. Men of genius 
differ from simple seers by their faculty of sensibly com¬ 
municating to other men what they themselves perceive, 
and of making themselves believed by the force of en¬ 
thusiasm and sympathy. Such persons are the medium 
of the Divine Word. 

Let us now state the manner in which visions operate. 
All forms correspond to ideas, and there is no idea which 
has not its proper and peculiar form. The primordial light, 
which is the vehicle of all ideas, is the mother of all forms, 


64 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


and transmits them from emanation to emanation, merely 
diminished or modified according to the density of the 
media. Secondary forms are reflections which return to 
the font of the emanated light. The forms of objects, 
being a modification of light, remain in the light where 
the reflection consigns them. Hence the astral light, or 
terrestrial fluid, which we call the great magnetic agent, is 
saturated with all kinds of images or reflections. Now, our 
soul can evoke these, and refer them to its diaphane, as the 
kabbalists term it. Such images are always present to us, 
and are only effaced by the more powerful impressions of 
reality during waking hours, or by preoccupation of the 
mind, which makes our imagination inattentive to the fluidic 
panorama of the astral light. When we sleep, this spectacle 
presents itself spontaneously before us, and in this way 
dreams are produced—dreams vague and incoherent if some 
governing will do not remain active during the sleep, giv¬ 
ing, even unconsciously to our intelligence, a direction to 
the dream, which then transforms into vision. Animal 
magnetism is nothing else but an artificial sleep produced 
by the voluntary or enforced union of two wills, one of 
which is awake while the other slumbers—that is, one of 
which directs the other in the choice of reflections for the 
transformation of dreams into visions, and the attainment of 
truth by means of images. Thus, somnambulists do not 
actually travel to the place where they are sent by the 
magnetiser; they evoke its images in the astral light, and 
can behold nothing which does not exist in that light. 
The astral light has a direct action on the nerves, which are 
its conductors in the animal economy, transmitting it to 
the brain, whence also, in the state of somnambulism, it is 
possible to see by means of the nerves, without being de¬ 
pendent on radiant light, the astral fluid being a latent 
light, in the same way that physics recognise the existence 
of a latent caloric. 

Magnetism between two persons is certainly a wonderful 
discovery, but the magnetising of a person by himself, 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


65 


accomplishing his own lucidity and directing himself at 
will, is the perfection of magical art. The secret of this 
great work does not rest for discovery; it has been known 
and practised by a great number of initiates, above all by 
the celebrated Apollonius of Tyana, who has left a theory 
concerning it, as we shall see in the Ritual. The secret of 
magnetic lucidity, and the direction of the phenomena of 
magnetism depend on two things—the agreement of minds 
and the complete union of wills, in a direction which is 
possible and determined by science. This is for the opera¬ 
tion of magnetism between two or more persons. Solitary 
magnetism requires preparations of, which we have spoken 
in our initial chapter, when enumerating and establishing 
in all their difficulty the essential qualities of a veritable 
adept. In the following chapters we shall further elucidate 
this important and fundamental point. 

The empire of the will over the astral light, which is the 
physical soul of the four elements, is represented in magic 
by the pentagram, which we have set at the head of this 
chapter. The elementary spirits are subservient to this 
sign when employed with understanding, and, by placing it 
in the circle or on the table of evocations, they can be 
rendered tractable, which is magically called to imprison 
them. Let us briefly explain this marvel. All created 
beings communicate with one another by signs, and all ad¬ 
here to a certain number of truths expressed by deter¬ 
minate forms. The perfection of forms increases in pro¬ 
portion to the detachment of spirits, and those that are not 
overweighted by the chains of matter, recognise by intuition 
out of hand whether a sign is the expression of a real power 
or of a precipitate will. The intelligence of the wise man 
therefore gives value to his pantacle, as science gives weight 
to his will, and spirits comprehend this power immediately. 
Thus, by means of the pentagram, spirits can be forced to 
appear in vision, whether in the waking or sleeping state, 
by themselves leading before our diaphane their reflection, 
which exists in the astral light, if they have lived, or a re - 


66 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


flection analogous to their spiritual logos if they have not 
lived on earth. This explains all visions, and accounts for 
the dead invariably appearing to seers, either such as they 
were upon earth, or such as they are in the grave, never as 
they subsist in a condition which escapes the perceptions of 
our actual organism. 

Pregnant women are influenced more than others by the 
astral light, which concurs in the formation of the child, 
and perpetually offers them reminiscences of the forms 
which abound therein. This explains how it is that women 
of the highest virtue deceive the malignity of observers by 
equivocal resemblances. On the fruit of their marriage 
they impress frequently an image which has struck them 
in dream, and it is thus that the same physiognomies are 
perpetuated from generation to generation. The Kabbalistic 
usage of the pentagram can therefore determine the appear¬ 
ance of unborn children, and an initiated woman might 
endow her son with the characteristics of Nero or Achilles 
as much as with those of Louis XIV. or Napoleon. We 
shall indicate the method in our Ritual. 

The pentagram is called in Kabbalah the sign of the 
microcosm, that sign so exalted by Goethe in the beautiful 
monologue of Faust : “Ah, how do all my senses leap at 
this sight! I feel the young and sacred pleasure of life 
bubbling in my nerves and veins. Was it a God who 
traced this sign which stills the vertigo of my soul, fills 
my poor heart with joy, and, in a mysterious rapture, 
unveils the forces of nature around me. Am I myself a 
God! All is so clear to me; I behold in these simple lines 
the revelation of active nature to my soul. I realise for 
the first time the truth of the wise man’s words: The 
world of spirits is not closed! Thy sense is obtuse, thy 
heart is dead! Arise! Bathe, 0 adept of science, thy 
breast, still enveloped by an earthly veil, in the splendours 
of the dawning day!” (Faust, Fart i. sc. 1). 

On the 24th of July in the year 1854, the author of 
this book, Eliphas Levi, made experiments of evocation with 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


67 


the pentagram, after due preparation by all the ceremonies 
which are indicated in the thirteenth chapter of the Ritual. 
The success of this experiment, details of which, as regards 
its principles, will be found in the corresponding chapter of 
this our doctrinal part, establishes a new pathological fact, 
which men of true science will admit without difficulty. 
The repeated experience, in all three times, gave results 
truly extraordinary, but positive and unmixed with halluci¬ 
nation. We invite sceptics to make a conscientious and 
intelligent attempt before shrugging their shoulders and 



smiling. The figure of the pentagram, perfected in accord¬ 
ance with science, and used by the author in his experiment, 
is that which is found at the head of this chapter, and it is 
more perfect than any in the keys of Solomon, or in the 
magical calendars of Tycho Brahe and Duchentau. We 
must, however, remark that the use of the pentagram is 
most dangerous for operators who are not in possession 
of its complete and perfect understanding. The direction of 
the points of the star is in no sense arbitrary, and may 
change the entire character of the operation, as we shall 
explain in the Ritual. 

Paracelsus, that innovator in magic, who surpassed all 
other initiates in his unaided practical success, affirms that 







68 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


every magical figure and every kabbalistic sign of the pan- 
tacles which compel spirits, may be reduced to two, which 
are the synthesis of all the others; these are the sign of the 
Macrocosm or the seal of Solomon, the form of which we 
have already given, and now reproduce here, and that of the 
Microcosm, more potent even than the first—that is to say, 
the pentagram, of which he provides a most minute descrip¬ 
tion in his occult philosophy. If it be asked how a sign 
can exercise so much power over spirits, we inquire in re¬ 
turn why the whole Christian world bows down before the 
sign of the cross ? The sign is nothing by itself, and has no 
force apart from the doctrine of which it is the summary 
and the logos. Now, a sign which sums, by their ex¬ 
pression, all the occult forces of nature, a sign which has 
ever exhibited to elementary spirits and others a power 
greater than their own, naturally fills them with respect and 
fear, and enforces their obedience by the empire of science 
and of will over ignorance and weakness. By the penta¬ 
gram also is measured the exact proportions of the great 
and unique athanor necessary to the confection of the philo¬ 
sophical stone and the accomplishment of the great work. 
The most perfect alembic in which the quintessence can be 
elaborated is conformable to this figure, and the quintessence 
itself is represented by the sign of the pentagram. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


69 


6 ^ D 

MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM 

TIPHERETH UNCUS 

Supreme intelligence is necessarily reasonable. God, in 
philosophy, may be only a hypothesis, but he is a hypothesis 
imposed by good sense on human reason. To personify 
the Absolute Reason is to determine the divine ideal. 
Necessity, liberty, and reason—these are the great and su¬ 
preme triangle of the Kabbalists, who name reason Kether, 
necessity Chochmah, and liberty Binah, in their first divine 
triad. Fatality, will, and power, such is the magical triad, 
which corresponds in things human to the divine triad. 
Fatality is the inevitable sequence of effects and causes in a 
determined order. Will is the directing faculty of intelli¬ 
gent forces for the conciliation of the liberty of persons with 
the necessity of things. Power is the wise application of 
will which enlists fatality itself in the accomplishment of 
the desires of the sage. When Moses smote the rock, he 
did not create the spring of water, he revealed it to the 
people, because occult science had made it known to himself 
by means of the divining rod. It is in like manner with all 
miracles of magic; a law exists, which is ignored by the 
vulgar and made use of by the initiate. Occult laws are 
often diametrically opposed to common ideas. For example, 
the crowd believes in the sympathy of things which are 
alike and in the hostility of things contrary, but it is the 
opposite which is the true law. It used to be affirmed that 
nature detests the void, but it should be said that nature 
desires it, were the void not, in physics, the most irrational 
of fictions. In all things the vulgar mind habitually takes 
shadow for reality, turns its back upon light, and is reflected 
in the obscurity which it projects itself. The forces of 
nature are at the disposal of one who knows how to resist 
them. Are you master sufficiently of yourself to be never 


70 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


intoxicated? Then will you direct the terrible and fatal 
power of intoxication. If you would make others drunk, 
possess them with the desire of drink, but do not partake 
of it yourself. That man will dispose of the love of others 
who is master of his own. If you would possess, do not 
give. The world is magnetised by the light of the sun, and 
we are magnetised by the astral light of the world. That 
which operates in the body of the planet repeats itself in 
us. Within us there are three analogical and hierarchic 
worlds, as in all nature. 

Man is the microcosm or little world, and, according to 
the doctrine of analogies, whatsoever is in the great world 
is reproduced in the small. Hence we have three centres 
of fluidic attraction and projection—the brain, the heart or 
epigastric region, and the genital organ. Each of these in¬ 
struments is double—in other words, we find the suggestion 
of the triad therein. Each attracts on one side and repels 
on another. It is by means of these apparatuses that we 
place ourselves in communication with the universal fluid 
transmitted into us by the nervous system. These three 
centres are, moreover, the seat of the threefold magnetic 
operation, as we shall explain elsewhere. When the magus 
has attained lucidity, whether through the mediation of a 
pythoness, or by his own development, he communicates and 
directs at will the magnetic vibrations in the whole mass of 
the astral light, the currents of which he divines by means 
of the magic rod, which is a perfected divining rod. By 
the aid of these vibrations he influences the nervous system 
of persons surrendered to his action, accelerates or suspends 
the currents of life, soothes or tortures, heals or hurts; in 
fine, slays or brings to life. . . . Here, however, we pause 
in presence of the smile of incredulity. Let us permit it to 
enjoy the cheap triumph of denying what it does not know. 

We shall demonstrate later on that death is always pre¬ 
ceded by a lethargic sleep, and only takes place gradually; 
that resurrection is possible in certain cases; that lethargy 
is a real, but uncompleted, death; and that the final 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


71 


paroxysm is in many cases subsequent to inhumation. This, 
however, is not the subject of the present chapter. We now 
affirm that a lucid will can act upon the mass of the astral 
light, and, in concurrence with other wills, which it absorbs 
and draws along, can determine great and irresistible cur¬ 
rents. We say also that the astral light condenses or 
rarefies in proportion as currents accumulate, more or less, 
ati certain centres. When it is deficient in the energy 
required for the support of life, diseases accompanied by 
sudden decomposition follow, of the kind which baffle 
physicians. There is not other cause, by example, in the 
case of cholera-morbus, and the swarms of animalculae ob¬ 
served or supposed by some specialists may be the effect 
rather than the cause. Cholera should therefore be treated 
by insufflation, did not the operator thereby run the chance 
of an exchange with the patient, which would be very for¬ 
midable for himself. Every intelligent effort of will is a 
projection of the human fluid or light, and here it is need¬ 
ful to distinguish the human from the astral light, and 
animal from universal magnetism. In making use of the 
word fluid, we employ an accepted expression, and would 
make ourselves understood in this manner, but we are far 
from deciding that the latent light is a fluid. Everything 
prompts us, on the contrary, to prefer the system of vibra¬ 
tions in the explanation of this phenomenal subject. How¬ 
ever it may be, the light in question, being the instrument 
of life, cleaves naturally to all living centres, attaches itself 
to the nucleus of planets, even as to the heart of man—and 
by the heart we understand magically the great sympathetic 
—identifying itself with the individual life of the being 
which it animates, and it is by this quality of sympathetic 
assimilation that it distributes itself without confusion. 
Hence it is terrestrial in its affinity with the sphere of the 
earth, and human exclusively in its affinity with men. 

It is for this reason that electricity, caloric, light, and 
magnetism, produced by ordinary physical means, not only 
do not originate, but rather tend to neutralise the effects of 



72 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


animal magnetism. The astral light, subordinated to a 
blind mechanism, and proceeding from arbitrary automatic 
centres, is a dead light, and works mathematically, follow¬ 
ing given impulsions or fatal laws; the human light is fatal 

' 

only to the ignorant in chance experiments; in the seer it 
is subjected to intelligence, submitted to imagination, and 
dependent on will. This light, continually projected by the 
will, constitutes the personal atmospheres of Swedenborg. 
The body absorbs what environs it, and radiates perpetually 
by projecting its influences and invisible molecules; it is the 
same with the spirit, so that this phenomenon, by some 
mystics termed respiration , has really the influence, both 
physical and moral, which is assigned to it. It is un¬ 
doubtedly contagious to breathe the same air as diseased 
persons, and to be within the circle of attraction and ex¬ 
pansion which surrounds the wicked. 

When the magnetic atmosphere of two persons is so equili¬ 
brated that the attractive faculty of one draws the ex¬ 
pansive faculty of the other, a tendency is produced which 
is termed sympathy; then imagination, calling up to it all 
the rays or reflections analogous to that which it experi¬ 
ences, makes a poem of the desires which captivate the will, 
and, if the persons differ in sex, it occasions in them, or 
more commonly in the weaker of the two, a complete in¬ 
toxication of the astral light, which is termed passion par 
excellence, or love. Love is one of the great instruments of 
magical power, bub it is categorically forbidden to the 
magus, at least as an intoxication or passion. Woe to the 
Samson of the Kabbalah if he permit himself to be put 
asleep by Delilah! The Hercules of science, who exchanges 
his royal sceptre for the distaff of Omphale, will soon ex¬ 
perience the vengeance of Dejanira, and nothing will be left 
for him but the pyre of Mount (Eta, in order to escape the 
devouring folds of the coat of Nessus. Sexual love is ever 
an illusion, for it is the result of an imaginary mirage. 
The astral light is the universal seducer, typified by the 
serpent of Genesis. This subtle agent, ever active, ever 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


73 


abounding in sap, ever fruitful in alluring dreams and 
sensuous images; this force, which by itself is blind and 
subordinated to every will, whether for good or evil; this 
every renewing circulus of unbridled life, which produces 
vertigo in the imprudent; this corporal spirit; this fiery 
body; this impalpable omnipresent ether; this monstrous 
seduction of nature—how shall we define it comprehensively 
and how characterise its action ? To some extent indifferent 
in itself, it lends itself to good as to evil; it transmits light 
and propagates darkness; it may be called equally Lucifer 
and Lucifuge; it is a. serpent but it is also an aureole; it is 
a fire, but it may belong equally to the torments of in- 
femus, or to the sacrifice of incense offered up to heaven. 
To dispose of it, we must, like the predestined women, set 
our foot upon its head. 

In the elementary world water corresponds to the kabba- 
listic woman and fire to the serpent. To subdue the serpent, 
that is, to govern the circle of the astral light, we must place 
ourselves outside its currents, that is, we must isolate our¬ 
selves. For this reason Apollonius of Tyana wrapped him¬ 
self completely in a mantle of fine wool, setting his feet 
thereon and drawing it over his head. Then he bent his 
back in semi-circular fashion, and closed his eyes, after 
fulfilling certain rites, probably magnetic passes and sacra¬ 
mental words designed to fix the imagination and determine 
the action of the will. The woollen mantle is of great use 
in magic, and was the common conveyance of sorcerers on 
their way to the Sabbath, which proves that the sorcerers 
did not really go to the Sabbath, but the Sabbath came to 
the sorcerers, when isolated in their mantle, and conducted 
to their translucid images analogous to their magical pre¬ 
occupations, combined with reflections of all kindred acts 
previously accomplished in the world. 

This torrent of universal life is also represented in re¬ 
ligious doctrines by the expiatory fire of hell. It is the in¬ 
strument of initiation, the monster to be overcome, the 
enemy to subdue; it is this which brings to our evocations 


74 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


and to the conjurations of goetic magic such swarms of 
larvae and phantoms; therein are preserved all the forms 
which by their fantastic and fortuitous assemblage people 
our nightmares with such abominable deformities. To allow 
ourselves to be sucked down by this whirling stream is to 
fall into the abysses of madness, more frightful than those 
of death; to expel the darkness of this chaos and force it to 
give perfect forms to our thoughts—this is, to be a man of 
genius, it is to create, it is to be victorious over hell! The 
astral light directs the instincts of animals and offers battle 
to the intelligence of man, which it strives to pervert by 
the enticements of its reflections, and the illusion of its 
images, a fatal and inevitable operation, directed and made 
still more calamitous by the elementary spirits and suffering 
souls, whose restless wills seek out sympathies in our weak¬ 
ness, and tempt us not so much to destroy us as to win 
friends for themselves. 

That book of consciences which, according to Christian 
doctrine, shall be opened at the last day, is no other than 
the astral light, which preserves the impress of every logos, 
that is to say, of all actions and all forms. Our acts 
modify our magnetic respiration in such a way that a seer, 
meeting any person for the first time, can tell whether that 
person is innocent or criminal, and what are his virtues or 
his crimes. This faculty, which belongs to divination, was 
called by the Christian mystics of the early Church the 
discernment of spirits. 

Those who abdicate the empire of reason and delight to 
let their wills wander in pursuit of the reflections in the 
astral light, are subject to alternations of mania and melan¬ 
choly which have originated all the marvels of demoniacal 
possession, though it is true, at the same time, that by 
means of these reflections impure spirits can act upon 
similar souls, make use of them as docile instruments, and 
even habitually torment their organism, wherein they enter 
and reside by obsession , or embryonically. These kabbalistic 
terms are explained in the Hebrew book of the Revolution 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


75 


of Souls, of which our thirteenth chapter will contain a 
succinct analysis. It is therefore extremely dangerous to 
make sport of the mysteries of magic; it is, above all, ex¬ 
cessively rash to practise its rites from curiosity, by experi¬ 
ment, and as if to exploit higher forces. The inquisitive 
who, without being adepts, busy themselves with evocations 
or occult magnetism, are like children playing with fire in 
the neighbourhood of a cask of gunpowder; sooner or later 
they will fall victims to some terrible explosion. 

To be isolated from the astral light it is not enough to 
envelop one’s self in a woollen fabric; we must also, and 
above all, impose absolute tranquillity on mind and heart, 
we must have quitted the world of passions and be assured 
of perseverance in the spontaneous operations of an in¬ 
flexible will. We must frequently reiterate the acts of this 
will, for, as we shall see in the introduction to the Ritual, 
the will only assures itself by acts, as the power and per¬ 
petuity of religions depend on their rites and ceremonies. 

There are intoxicating substances, which, by increasing 
nervous sensibility, exalt the power and consequently the 
allurements of astral representations; by the same means, 
but pursuing a contrary course, spirits may be alarmed and 
disturbed. These substances, of themselves magnetic, and 
further magnetised by the operators, are what people term 
philters and enchanted potions. But we shall not enter 
here upon this dangerous application of magic, which 
Cornelius Agrippa himself terms venomous magic. It is 
true that there are no longer pyres for sorcerers, but always, 
and more than ever, are there penalties dealt out to male¬ 
factors. Let us confine ourselves therefore to stating, as the 
occasion offers, the reality of this power. 

To direct the astral light we must understand also its 
double vibration, as well as the balance of forces termed 
magical equilibrium and expressed in the Kabbalah by the 
senary. Considered in its first cause, this equilibrium is the 
will of God; it is liberty in man, and mathematical equilib¬ 
rium in matter. Equilibrium produces stability and dura- 


76 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


tion. Liberty generates the immortality of man, and the 
will of God gives effect to the laws of eternal reason. 
Equilibrium in ideas is reason and in forces power. 
Equilibrium is exact; fulfil its law, and it is there; violate 
it, however slightly, and it is destroyed. For this reason 
nothing is useless or lost. Eyery utterance and every move- I 
ment are for or against truth, which is composed of for and 
against conciliated, or at least equilibrated. We shall state 
in the introduction to the Ritual how magical equilibrium 
should be produced, and why it is necessary to the success 
of all operations. 

Omnipotence is the most absolute liberty; now, absolute 
liberty cannot exist apart from perfect equilibrium. Magical 
equilibrium is hence one of the first conditions of success in 
the operations of science, and must be sought even in occult 
chemistry, by learning to combine contraries without 
neutralising them by one another* Magical equilibrium 
explains the great and primeval mystery of the existence 
and relative necessity of evil. This relative necessity gives, 
in black magic, the measure of the power of demons or 
impure spirits, to whom virtues practised upon earth are a 
source of increased rage and apparently of increased power. 
At the epochs when saints and angels work miracles openly, 
sorcerers and fiends in their turn operate marvels and 
prodigies. Rivalry often creates success; we lean upon that 
which resists. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


77 


THE FIERY SWORD 

NETSAH GLADIUS 

The septenary is the sacred number in all theogonies and in 
all symbols, because it is composed of the triad and the 
tetrad. The number seven represents magical power in all 
its fulness; it is the mind reinforced by all elementary 
potencies; it is the soul served by nature; it is the sanctum 
regnum mentioned in the keys of Solomon, and represented 
in the Tarot by a crowned warrior, who bears a triangle on 
his cuirass, and is posed upon a cube, to which two sphinxes 
are harnessed, straining in opposite directions, while their 
heads are turned the same way. This warrior is armed with 
a fiery sword, and holds in his other hand, a sceptre sur¬ 
mounted by a triangle and a sphere. The cube is the 
philosophical stone; the sphinxes are the two forces of the 
great agent, corresponding to Jakin and Bohas, the two 
pillars of the temple; the cuirass is the knowledge of 
divine things, which renders the wise man invulnerable to 
human assaults; the sceptre is the magic rod; the fiery 
sword is the symbol of victory over the deadly sins, seven 
in number, like the virtues, the conceptions of both being 
typified by the ancients under the figures of the seven 
planets then known. Thus, faith—that aspiration towards 
the infinite, that noble self-reliance sustained by confidence 
in all virtues—that faith, which, in weak natures, may de¬ 
generate into pride, was represented by the Sun; hope, the 
enemy of avarice, by the Moon; charity, in opposition to 
luxury, by Venus, the bright star of the morning and 
evening; strength, superior to wrath, by Mars; prudence, 
hostile to idleness, by Mercury; temperance, opposed to 
gluttony, by Saturn, who was given a stone instead of his 
children to devour; finally, justice, in opposition to envy, 
by Jupiter, the conqueror of the Titans. Such are the 
symbols borrowed by astronomy from the Hellenic cultus. 
In the Kabbalah of the Hebrews, the Sun represents the 


78 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


angel of light; the Moon, the angel of aspirations and 
dreams; Mars, the destroying angel; Mercury, the angel 
of progress; Jupiter, the angel of power; Saturn, the angel 
of the wilderness. They were named Michael, Gabriel, 
Samael, Anael, Raphael, Zachariel, and Orifiel. 

These governing potencies of souls shared human life in 
periods, which astrologers measured by the revolutions of 
the corresponding planets. But kabbalistic astrology must 
not be confounded with judicial astrology. We will explain 
this distinction. Infancy is dedicated to the Sun, childhood 
to the Moon, youth to Mars and Venus, manhood to Mer¬ 
cury, ripe age to Jupiter, and old age to Saturn. Now, hu¬ 
manity in general subsists under laws of development anal¬ 
ogous to those of individual life. On this groundwork 
Trithemius establishes his prophetic key of the seven spir¬ 
its, to which we shall subsequently refer; by means thereof, 
observing the analogical proportions of successive events, 
it is possible to predict important future occurrences with 
certitude, and to fix beforehand, from age to age, the des¬ 
tinies of nations and the world. St. John, depositary of the 
secret doctrine of Christ, has introduced it into the kabba¬ 
listic book of the Apocalypse, which he represents sealed 
with seven seals. We there find the seven genii of ancient 
mythologies, with the cups and swords of the Tarot. The 
doctrine concealed under these emblems is the pure Kab¬ 
balah, already lost by the Pharisees at the time of Christ’s 
advent. The scenes which succeed one another in this won¬ 
derful prophetic epic are so many pantacles, the keys of 
which are the ternary, the quaternary, the septenary, and 
the duodenary. Its hieroglyphic figures are analogous to 
those of the book of Hermes or the Genesis of Enoch, to 
make use of a tentative title which expresses merely the 
personal opinion of the erudite William Postel. 

The cherub, or symbolic bull, which Moses placed at the 
gate of the edenic world, bearing a fiery sword, is a sphinx, 
having a bull’s body and a human head; it is the antique 
Assyrian sphinx, and the combat and victory of Mithras 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


79 


were its hieroglyphic analysis. Now, this armed sphinx 
represents the law of mystery which watches at the door of 
initiation to warn away the profane. Voltaire, who knew 
nothing of all this, was highly diverted at the notion of a 
bull brandishing a sword. What would he have said had he 
visited the ruins of Memphis and Thebes, and what would 
the echo of past ages which slumbers in the tombs of 
Rameses have replied to those light sarcasms so much rel¬ 
ished in France? The Mosaic cherub represents also the 
great magical mystery, of which the elements are expressed 
by the septenary, without, however, giving the final word. 
This verbum inenarrabile of the sages of the Alexandrian 
interpret by thus expressing the triplicity of the 

school; this word which Hebrew Kabbalists write and 
secondary principle, the dualism of the means, and the equal 
unity of the first and final principle, then further the alli¬ 
ance between the triad and the tetrad in a word composed 
of four letters, which form seven by means of a triple and 
double repetition—this word is pronounced Ararita. 

The virtue of the septenary is absolute in magic, for the 
number is decisive in all things; hence all religions have 
consecrated it in their rites. The seventh year was a jubi¬ 
lee among the Jews; the seventh day is set apart for rest 
and prayer; there are seven sacraments, &c. The seven col¬ 
ours of the prism an dthe seven musical notes, correspond 
also to the seven planets of the ancients, that is, to the seven 
chords of the human lyre. The spiritual heaven has never 
changed, and astrology has been more invariable than as¬ 
tronomy. The seven planets are, in fact, the hieroglyphic 
symbols of the key of our affections. To compose talismans 
of the Sun, Moon, or Saturn, is to attach the will magneti¬ 
cally to signs corresponding to the chief powers of the soul; 
to consecrate something to Mercury or Venus is to magnetise 
that object according to a direct intention, whether pleas¬ 
ure, science, or profit be the end in view. The analogous 
metals, animals, plants, and perfumes are auxiliaries to this 
end. The seven magical animals are:— (a) Among birds, 


80 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


corresponding to the divine world, the swan, the owl, the 
vulture, the dove, the stork, the eagle, and the pewit; ( b ) 
among fish, corresponding to the spiritual or scientific world, 
the seal, the cat-fish, the pike, the mullet, the chub, the dol¬ 
phin, the sepia or cutle-fish; (c) among quadrupeds, cor¬ 
responding to the natural world, the lion, the cat, the wolf, 
the he-goat, the monkey, the stag, and the mole. The blood, 
fat, liver, and gall of these animals serve in enchantments; 
their brain combines with the perfumes of the planets, and 
it is recognised by ancient practice that they possess mag¬ 
netic virtues corresponding to the seven planetary influences. 

The talismans of the seven spirits are engraved either on 
precious stones, such as the carbuncle, crystal, diamond, 
emerald, agate, sapphire, and onyx; or upon metals, such 
as gold, silver, iron, copper, fixed mercury, pewter, and lead. 
The kabbalistic signs of the seven spirits are:—for the Sun, 
a serpent with the head of a lion; for the Moon, a globe 
divided by two crescents; for Mars, a dragon biting the hilt 
of a sword; for Venus, a lingam; for Mercury, the Her¬ 
metic caduceus and the cynocephalus; for Jupiter, the blaz¬ 
ing pentagram in the talons or beak of an eagle; for Saturn, 
a lame and aged man, or a serpent curled about the sun- 
stone. All these symbols are found on the graven stones of 
the ancients, and especially on those talismans of the Gnos¬ 
tic epochs which are known by the name of Abraxas. In 
the collection of the talismans of Paracelsus, Jupiter is rep¬ 
resented by a priest in ecclesiastical costume, while in the 
Tarot he appears as a grand hierophant crowned with a 
triple tiara, holding a three-fold cross in his hands, forming 
the magical triangle, and representing at once the sceptre 
and key of the three worlds. 

By combining all that we have said about the unity of 
the triad and tetrad, we shall find all that remains for us to 
say concerning the septenary, that grand and complete 
magical unity composed of four and three.* 

* With reference to the plants and colours of the septenary em¬ 
ployed in magnetic experiences, see the erudite work of M. Ragon 
on La Magonnerie Occulte. 



TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


81 


8 n H 

REALISATION 

HOD VIVENS 

Causes manifest by effects, and effects are proportioned to 
causes. The divine word, the one word, the tetragram, has 
affirmed itself by tetradic creation. Human fecundity 
proves divine fecundity; the jod of the divine name is the 
eternal virility of the First Principle. Man understands 
that he was made in the image of God when he attains com¬ 
prehension of God by increasing to infinity the idea 
which he forms of himself. When realising God as the 
infinite man, man says unto himself: I am the finite 
God. Magic differs from mysticism because it judges noth¬ 
ing d priori until after it has established d posteriori the 
base itself of its judgments, that is to say, after having un¬ 
derstood the cause by the effects contained in the very 
energy of the cause, by means of the universal law of anal¬ 
ogy. Hence in the occult sciences all is real, and theories 
are established only on the foundations of experience. Real¬ 
ities alone constitute the proportions of the ideal, and the 
magus admits nothing as certain in the domain of ideas 
save that which is demonstrated by realisation. In other 
words, what is true in the cause manifests in the effect. 
What is not realised does not exist. The realisation of 
speech is the logos properly so called. A thought realises 
itself in becoming speech; it realises itself also by signs, 
sounds, and representations of signs: this is the first degree 
of realisation. Then it is imprinted on the astral light by 
means of the signs of writing or speech; it influences other 
minds by reflection upon them; it is refracted by crossing 
the diaphane of other men; it assumes new forms and pro¬ 
portions; it is then translated into acts and modifies the 
world: this is the last degree of realisation. Men who are 


82 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


born into a world modified by an idea bear away with 
them the impression thereof, and it is thus that the word is 
made flesh. The impression of the disobedience of Adam, 
preserved in the astral light, could only be effaced by the 
stronger impression of the obedience of the Saviour, and 
thus the original sin and redemption of the world can be 
explained in a natural and magical sense. The astral light, 
or soul of the world, was the instrument of Adam’s omnipo¬ 
tence; it became afterwards the instrument of his punish¬ 
ment, being corrupted and troubled by his sin, which inter¬ 
mingled an impure reflection with those primitive images 
which composed the book of universal science for his still 
virgin imagination. ' 

The astral light, depicted in ancient symbols by the ser¬ 
pent devouring his tail, represents alternately malice and 
prudence, time and eternity, tempter and Redeemer; for 
this light, being the vehicle of life, is an auxiliary alike of 
good and evil, and may be taken for the fiery form of Satan 
as for the body of the Holy Ghost. It is the instrument of 
warfare in angelic battles, and indifferently feeds the flames 
of hell and the lightnings of St. Michael. It may be com¬ 
pared to a horse having a nature analogous to the chame¬ 
leon, and ever reflecting the armour of his rider. The astral 
light is the realisation or form of the intellectual light, as 
the latter is the realisation or form of the divine light. 

The great initiator of Christianity, divining that the as-" 
tral light was overcharged with the impure reflections of 
Roman debauchery, sought to separate his disciples from 
the ambient sphere of reflections, and to make them atten¬ 
tive only to the interior light, so that, through the medium 
of a common faith and enthusiasm, they might communi¬ 
cate together by new magnetic chains, which he termed 
grace, and thus overcome the dissolute currents, to which 
he gave the names of the devil and Satan, signifying their 
putrefaction. To oppose current to current is to renew the 
power of fluidic life. The revealers have, therefore, scarcely 
done more than divine, by the accuracy of their calculations, 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


83 


the appropriate moment for moral reactions. The law of 
realisation produces what we call magnetic breathing; places 
and objects become impregnated therewith, and this com¬ 
municates to them an influence in conformity with our 
dominant desires, with those, above all, which are confirmed 
and realised by acts. As a fact, the universal agent, or 
latent astral light, ever seeks equilibrium; it fills the void 
and sucks up the plenitude, which makes vice contagious, 


s like certain physical maladies, and works powerfully in the 
^proselytism of virtue. Hence it is that cohabitation with 
antipathetic beings is a torment; hence it is that relics, 
whether of saints or of great criminals, produce the extra¬ 
ordinary results of sudden conversion and perversion; hence 
it is that sexual love is often awakened by a breath or a 
touch, and this, not only by means of the contact of the 
person himself, but of objects which he has unconsciously 
touched or magnetised. 

There is an outbreathing and inbreathing of the soul, ex¬ 
actly like that of the body. It breathes in the felicity which 
it believes, and it breathes forth ideas which result from its 
inner sensations. Diseased souls have an evil breath, and 
vitiate their moral atmosphere—that is, they combine im¬ 
pure reflections with the astral light which permeates them, 
and establish unwholesome currents therein. We are often 
invaded, to our astonishment, in society by evil thoughts 
which would have seemed impossible, and are not aware 
that they are due to some morbid proximity. This secret 
is of high importance, for it leads to the opening of con¬ 
sciences, one of the most incontestible and terrible powers 
of magical art. Magnetic respiration produces about the 
soul a radiation of which it is the centre, and surrounds it 
with the reflection of its works, creating for it a heaven or 
a hell. There are no isolated acts, and it is impossible that 
there should be secret acts; whatsoever we truly will—that 
is, everything which we confirm by our acts—remains reg¬ 
istered in the astral light, where our reflections are pre¬ 
served. These reflections continually influence our thought 


84 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


by the mediation of the diaphane, and it is in this sense that 
we become and remain the children of our works. 

The astral light, transformed at the moment of conception 
into human light, is the soul’s first envelope, and, in com¬ 
bination with extremely subtle fluids, it forms the ethereal 
body or sidereal phantom, of which Paracelsus discourses 
in his philosophy of intuition— philosophic/, sagax. This sid¬ 
ereal body, setting itself free at death, attracts, and for a 
long time preserves, through the sympathy of things ho¬ 
mogeneous, the reflections of the past life; if drawn along 
a special current by a will which is powerfully sympathetic, 
it manifests naturally, for there is nothing more natural 
than prodigies. It is thus apparitions are produced. But 
we shall develop this point more fully in the chapter de¬ 
voted to Necromancy. This fluidic body, subject, like the 
mass of the astral light, to two contrary movements, at¬ 
tracting on the left and repelling on the right, or recipro¬ 
cally, between the two sexes, begets various impulses within 
us and contributes to solicitudes of conscience; it is fre¬ 
quently influenced by reflections of other minds, and thus 
are produced, on the one hand, temptations, and, on the 
other, profound and unexpected graces. This is also the ex¬ 
planation of the traditional doctrine of two angels who 
strengthen and tempt us. The two forces of the astral light 
may be represented by a.balance wherein are weighed our 
good intentions for the triumph of justice and the emanci¬ 
pation of our liberty. 

The astral body is not always of the same sex as the ter¬ 
restrial, that is, the proportions of the two forces, varying 
from right to left, frequently seem to gainsay the visible 
organisation, producing the seeming vagaries of human pas¬ 
sions, and explaining, without in any sense morally justi¬ 
fying the amorous peculiarities of Anacreon or Sappho. A 
skilful magnetiser should take all these subtle distinctions 
into account, and we shall provide in our Ritual the rules 
for their recognition. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


85 


There are two kinds of realisation, the true and the fan¬ 
tastic. The first is the exclusive secret of magicians, the 
other belongs to enchanters and sorcerers. Mythologies are 
fantastic realisations of religious dogma; superstitions are 
the sorcery of mistaken piety; but even mythologies and 
superstitions are more efficacious with human will than a 
purely speculative philosophy apart from any practice. 
Hence St. Paul opposes the conquests of the folly of the 
Cross to the inertness of human wisdom. Religion realises 
philosophy by adapting it to the weaknesses of the vulgar; 
such is for Kabbalists the secret reason and occult explana¬ 
tion of the doctrines of incarnation and redemption. 

Thoughts untranslated into speech are thoughts lost for 
humanity; words unconfirmed by acts are idle words, and 
the idle word is not far removed from falsehood. Thought 
formulated by speech and confirmed by acts constitutes a 
good work or a crime. Hence, whether in vice or virtue, 
there is no speech for which we are not responsible; above 
all, there are no indifferent acts. Curses and blessings in¬ 
variably produce their consequence, and every action, what¬ 
soever its nature, whether inspired by love or hate, has ef¬ 
fects analogous to its motive, its extent, and its direction. 
When that emperor whose images had been mutilated, rais¬ 
ing his hand to his face, exclaimed, <( I do not feel that I 
am injured, ’ ’ he was mistaken in his valuation, and thereby 
detracted from the merit of his clemency. What man of 
honour could behold undisturbed an insult offered to his 
portrait? And did such insults, inflicted even unknown to 
ourselves, react on us by a fatal influence, were the effects 
of bewitchment actual, as indeed an adept cannot doubt, 
how much more imprudent and ill-advised would seem this 
utterance of the good emperor! 

There are persons whom we can never offend with im¬ 
punity, and if the injury we have done them is mortal, we 
forthwith begin to die. There are those also whom we never 
meet in vain, whose mere glance alters the direction of our 
life. The basilisk who slays by a look is no fable; it is a 


86 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


magical allegory. Generally speaking, it is bad for health 
to have enemies, and we can never brave with impunity the 
reprobation of anyone. Before opposing ourselves to a 
given force or current, we must be well assured that we 
possess the contrary force, or are with the stream of the 
contrary current; otherwise, we shall be crushed or struck 
down, and many sudden deaths have no other cause than 
this. The terrible visitations of Nadab and Abiu, of Osa, 
of Ananias and Saphira, were occasioned by electric cur¬ 
rents of outraged convictions; the sufferings of the 
Ursulines of Londun, of the nuns of Louviers, and of the 
copivulsionaries of Jansenism, were identical in principle, 
and are explicable by the same occult natural laws. Had 
not Urban Grandier been immolated, one of two things 
would have occurred—either the possessed nuns would have 
died in frightful convulsions, or the phenomena of diabolical 
frenzy would have so gained in strength and in influence, 
epidemically, that Grandier, notwithstanding his knowledge 
and his reason, would himself have become hallucinated, and 
to such a degree that he would haye slandered himself, like 
the unhappy Gaufridy, or would otherwise have perished 
suddenly, with all the appalling characteristics of poisoning 
or of divine vengeance. In the eighteenth century the un¬ 
fortunate poet Gilbert fell a victim to his audacity in brav¬ 
ing the current of opinion and actual philosophical fanati¬ 
cism which characterised his epoch. Guilty of philosophical 
treason, he died raving mad, possessed by the most incred¬ 
ible terrors, as if God himself had punished him for de¬ 
fending his cause out of season. As a fact, he perished by 
reason of a law of nature of which he could know nothing; 
he set himself against an electric current, and was struck 
down as by lightning. Had Marat not been assassinated by 
Charlotte Corday, he would have been destroyed infallibly 
by a reaction of public opinion. It was the execration of 
the honest which afflicted him with leprosy, and he would 
have had to succumb thereto. The reprobation excited by 
the massacre of St, Bartholomew was the sole cause of the 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


87 


atrocious disease and death of Charles IX., while, had not 
Henry IV. been sustained by an immense popularity, which 
he owed to the projecting power or sympathetic force of his 
astral life, he would scarcely have outlived his conversion, 
but would have perished under the contempt of Protestants, 
combined with the suspicion and ill-will of Catholics. Un¬ 
popularity may be a proof of integrity and courage, but 
never of policy or prudence; the wounds inflicted by opin¬ 
ion are mortal for statesmen. We may recall the premature 
and violent end of many illustrious persons whom it would 
be inexpedient to mention here. Disgraces in public opin¬ 
ion may often be great injustices, but none the less they 
are invariably occasions of ill-success, and frequently of a 
death-sentence. In return, acts of injustice done to one 
individual can and should, if they rest unrepaired, cause 
the loss of an entire nation or of a whole society; this is 
what is called the cry of blood, for at the bottom of every 
injustice there is the germ of homicide. By reason of these 
terrible laws of solidarity, Christianity recommends so 
strongly the forgiveness of injuries and reconciliation. He 
who dies unforgiving casts himself dagger-armed into eter¬ 
nity, and condemns himself to the horrors of an eternal 
murder. The efficacy of paternal or maternal blessings or 
curses is an invincible popular tradition and belief. As a 
fact, the closer the bonds which unite two persons, the more 
terrible are the consequences of hatred between them. The 
brand of Althaea burning the blood of Meleager is the 
mythological symbol of this terrible power. Let parents 
be ever on their guard, for no one can kindle hell in his own 
blood, and devote his own issue to misfortune, without be¬ 
ing himself burnt and made wretched. To pardon is never 
a crime, but to curse is always a danger and an evil action. 


88 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 



INITIATION 

JESOD BONUM 

The initiate is he who possesses the lamp of Trismegistus, 
The lamp of Trismegistus is reason illuminated by science; 
the mantle of Apollonius is full and complete self-posses¬ 
sion, which isolates the sage from blind tendencies; and the 
staff of the patriarchs is the help of the secret and everlast¬ 
ing forces of nature. The lamp of Trismegistus enlightens 
present, past, and future, lays bare the conscience of men, 
and manifests the inmost recesses of the female heart. The 
lamp bums with a triple flame, the mantle is thrice-folded, 
and the staff is divided into three parts. 

The number nine is that of divine reflections; it expresses 
the divine idea in all its abstract power, but it also signifies 
extravagance in belief, and hence superstition and idolatry. 
For this reason Hermes has made it the number of initiation, 
because the initiate reigns over superstition and by super¬ 
stition, and alone can advance through the darkness, leaning 
on his staff, enveloped in his mantle, and lighted by his 
lamp. Reason has been given to all men, but all do not 
know how to make use of it; it is a science to be acquired. 
Liberty is offered to all, but not all can be free; it is a 
right that must be earned. Force is for all, but all do not 
know how to rest upon it; it is a power that must be seized. 
We attain nothing without more than one effort. The 
destiny of man is that he should enrich himself with what 
he gains, and that he should afterwards have, like God, 
the glory and pleasure of dispensing it. 

Magic was called formerly the sacerdotal art and the 
royal art, because initiation gave empire over souls to the 
sage, and the adroitness for ruling wills. Divination is also 
one of the privileges of the initiate; now, divination is sim- 




TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


89 


ply the knowledge of effects contained in causes and science 
applied to the facts of the universal dogma of analogy. 
Human acts are not alone written in the astral light; their 
traces are left upon the face, they modify mien and car¬ 
riage, they change the tone of the voice. Thus every man 
bears about him the history of his life, which is legible for 
the initiate. Now, the future is ever the consequence of the 
past, and unexpected circumstances do not appreciably alter 
results reasonably calculated. The destiny of each man can 
be therefore foretold him. An entire existence can be 
judged by a single movement ; one piece of awkwardness 
may be the presage of a long chain of misfortunes. Csesar 
was assassinated because he was ashamed of being bald; 
Napoleon ended his days at St Helena because he admired 
the poems of Ossian; Louis Philippe abdicated the throne 
as he did because he carried an umbrella. These are para¬ 
doxes for the vulgar, who cannot grasp the occult relations 
of things, but they are causes for the adept, who under¬ 
stands all and is surprised at nothing. 

Initiation is a preservative against the false lights of 
mysticism; it equips human reason with its relative value 
and proportional infallibility, connecting it with supreme 
reason by the chain of analogies. Hence the initiate knows 
no doubtful hopes, no absurd fears because he has no irra¬ 
tional beliefs; he is acquainted with the extent of his power, 
and he can dare without danger. For him, therefore, to dare 
is to be able. Here, then, is a new interpretation of his 
attributes; his lamp represents learning, the mantle which 
enwraps him his discretion, and his taff is the emblem of 
his strength and daring. He knows, he dares, and is silent. 
He knows the secrets of the future, he dares in the present, 
and he is silent on the past. He knows the failings of the 
human heart; he dares make use of them to achieve his 
work; and he is silent as to his purposes. He knows the 
principle of all symbolisms and of all religions; he dares to 
practise or to abstain from them without hypocrisy and 
without impiety; and he is silent upon the one dogma of 


90 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


supreme initiation. He knows the existence and nature of 
the great magical agent; he dares perform the acts and 
give utterance to the words which make it subject to human 
will, and he is silent upon the mysteries of the great 
arcanum. 

So may you find him often melancholy, never dejected or 
despairing; often poor, never abject or miserable; perse¬ 
cuted often, never disheartened or conquered. He remem¬ 
bers the bereavement and murder of Orpheus, the exile and 
lonely death of Moses, the martyrdom of the prophets, the 
tortures of Apollonius, the cross of the Saviour. He knows 
the desolation in which Agrippa died, whose memory is even 
now slandered; he knows what labours overcame the great 
Paracelsus, and all that Raymond Lully was condemned to 
undergo that he might finish by a violent death. He re¬ 
members Swedenborg simulating madness and even losing 
reason in order to excuse his science; St. Martin and his 
hidden life; Cagliostro, who perished forsaken in the cells 
of the Inquisition; Cazotte, who ascended the scaffold. In¬ 
heritor of so many victims, he does not dare the less, but he 
understands better the necessity for silence. Let us follow 
his example; let us learn diligently; when we know, let us 
have courage, and let us be silent. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


91 


10 ^ K 

THE KABBALAH 

MALCHUTH PRINCIPIUM PHALLUS 

All religions have preserved the remembrance of a primi¬ 
tive book, written in types, by the sages of the earliest ages 
of the world! simplified and vulgarised in later days, its 
symbols furnished letters to the art of Writing, characters 
to the Word, and to occult Philosophy its mysterious signs 
and pantacles. This book, attributed by the Hebrews to 
Enoch, seventh master of the world after Adam; by the 
Egyptians to Hermes-Trismegistus; by the Greeks to Cad¬ 
mus, the mysterious builder of the Holy City; this book 
was the symbolical summary of primitive tradition, called 
subsequently Kabbalah or Cabala, meaning reception. The 
tradition in question rests altogether on the one dogma of 
magic: the visible is for us the proportional measure of the 
invisible. Now the ancients, observing that equilibrium is 
the universal law in physics, consequent on the apparent 
opposition of two forces, argued from physical to meta- 

, , L i, ~, - - .. ■ « 

physical equilibrium, and maintained that in God, that is, 
in the prime living and active cause, there must be recog¬ 
nised two properties which are necessary to one another— 
stability and motion, necessity and liberty, rational order 
and volitional antonomy, justice and love, whence also 
severity and mercy. Now, these two attributes were per¬ 
sonified, so to speak, by the Kabbalistic Jews under the 
names of Geburah and Chesed. Above Geburah and Chesed 
abides the supreme crown, the equilibrating power, princi¬ 
ple of the world or equilibrated kingdom, which we find 
mentioned under the name of Malchuth in the occult and 
kabbalistic versicle of the Pater-noster to which we have 
already refered. But Geburah and Chesed, maintained in 
equilibrium by the crown above and the kingdom below, 


92 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


constitute two principles, which may be considered from an 
abstract point of view, or in their realisation. In their 
abstract or idealised sense, they take the higher names of 
Chochmah, wisdom, and Binah, intelligence. Their realisa¬ 
tion is stability and progress, that is, eternity and victory— 
Hod and Netsah. 

Such, according to the Kabbalah, is the groundwork of all 
religions and all sciences—a triple triangle and a circle, the 
notion of the triad explained by the balance multiplied by 
itself in the domains of the ideal, then the realisation of this 
conception in forms. Now, the ancients attached the first 
notions of this simple and impressive theology to the very 
idea of numbers, and qualified the figures of the first decade 
after the following manner :— 

1. Kether. —The Crown, the equilibrating power. 

2. Chochmah. —Wisdom, equilibrated in its unchangeable 
order by the initiative of intelligence. 

3. Binah. —Active intelligence, equilibrated by Wisdom. 

4. Chesed. —Mercy, which is wisdom in its secondary con¬ 
ception, ever benevolent because it is strong. 

5. Geburah. —Austerity, necessitated by Wisdom itself, 
and by goodwill. To permit evil is to hinder good. 

6. Tiphereth. —Beauty, the luminous conception of equili¬ 
brium in forms, intermediary between the Crown and the 
Kingdom, mediating principle between Creator and crea¬ 
tion. (Sublime conception of poetry and its sovereign 
priesthood!) 

7. Netsah. —Victory, that is, eternal triumph of intelli¬ 
gence and justice. 

8. Hod. —Eternity of the conquests achieved by mind 
over matter, active over passive, life over death. 

9. Jesod. —The Foundation, that is, the basis of all belief 
and all truth— what we term the absolute in philosophy. 

10. Malchuth. —The Kingdom is the universe, entire crea¬ 
tion, the work and mirror of God, the proof of supreme rea- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


93 


son, the formal consequence which compels us to have re¬ 
course to virtual premisses, the enigma which has God for 
its answer—supreme and absolute reason. 

These ten primary notions attached to the ten first char¬ 
acters of the primitive alphabet, signifying both principles 
and numbers, are- called the ten Sephiroth by the masters 
in Kabbalah. The sacred tetragam, drawn in the following 
manner, indicates the number, source, and correspondence 
of the divine names. To this name of Jotchavah, written 
by these four-and-twenty signs, crowned with a triple 
flower of light, must be referred the twenty-four thrones of 
heaven, and the twenty-four crowned elders in the Apo¬ 
calypse. In the Kabbalah the occult principle is called the 
Elder, and this principle, multiplied, and, as it were, re¬ 



flected, in secondary causes, creates images of itself—that 
is to say, so many elders as there are diverse conceptions 
of its unique essence. These images, less perfect in pro¬ 
portion as they are further removed from their source, pro¬ 
ject upon the darkness an ultimate reflection or glimmer, 
representing a horrible and deformed elder, who is vulgarly 
termed the devil. Hence an initiate has been bold enough 
to say: ‘ ‘ The devil is God, as understood by the wicked; ’ ’ 
while another has added, in words more bizarre, but no less 
energetic: “The devil is composed of God’s ruins.” We 
may sum up and explain these strikingly novel definitions 
by remarking that in symbolism itself the demon is an angel 
cast out of heaven for having sought to usurp divinity. 
This belongs to the allegorical language of prophets and 
makers of legends. Philosophically speaking, the devil is 


94 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


a human idea of divinity, which has been surpassed and 
dispossessed of heaven by the progress of science and rea¬ 
son. Among primitive Oriental peoples, Moloch, Adram- 
elek, Baal, were personifications of the one God, dishon¬ 
oured by barbarous attributes. The god of the Jansenists, 
creating hell for the majority of human beings, and de¬ 
lighting in the eternal tortures of those he was unwilling 
to save, is a conception even more barbarous than that of 
Moloch; hence the god of the Jansenists is already a ver¬ 
itable Satan fallen from heaven in the sight of every wise 
and enlightened Christian. 

In the multiplication of the divine names the kabbalists 
have connected them all, either with the unity of the tetra- 
gram, the figure of the triad, or the sephirotic scale of the 
decad. They arrange the scale of the divine names and 
numbers in a triangle, which may be presented in Roman 
characters as follows:— 

J 

JA 
SDI 
JEHV 
ELOIM 
SABOAT 
ARARITA 
ELVEDAAT 
ELIM GIBOR 
ELIM SABAOT 

The sum of all these divine names formed from the one 
tetragram is a basis of the Hebrew Ritual, and constitutes 
the occult force which the kabbalistic rabbins invoke under 
the title of Semhamphoras. 

We have now to concern ourselves with the Tarot from 
the kabbalistic point of view, and have already indicated 
the occult source of the name. This hieroglyphic book is 
composed of a kabbalistic alphabet, and of a wheel or circle 
of four decades, distinguished by four symbolical and typi¬ 
cal figures, each having for its radius a scale of four pro- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


95 


gressive figures, which represent Humanity: man, woman, 
youth, child—master, mistress, knight, esquire. The twen¬ 
ty-two figures of the alphabet represent, in the first place, 
the thirteen dogmas, and secondly, the nine beliefs author¬ 
ised by that Jewish religion which is so strong and so firmly 
established in the highest reason. 

Here follows the religious and kabbalistic key of The 
Tarot, formulated in technical verses after the mode of the 
ancient lawgivers:— 

1 ft A conscious, active cause in all we see. 

2 3 And number proves the living unity. 

3 2 No bound hath He who doth the whole contain. 

4 *t But, all preceding, fills life’s vast domain. 

5 r> Sole worthy worship, He, the only Lord. 

6 * Doth his true doctrine to clean hearts accord. 

7 1 But since faith’s works a single pontiff need, 

8 n One law have we, and at one altar plead; 

9 Eternal God for aye their base upholds. 

10 T Heaven and man’s days alike his rule enfolds. 

11 2 In mercy rich, in retribution strong, 

12 His people’s King he will upraise ere long. 

13 tD The tomb gives entrance to the promised land, 

Death only ends; life’s vistas still expand. 

These doctrines sacred, pure, and stedfast shine; 
And thus we close our number’s scale divine. 

14 j Good angels all things temper and assuage, 

15 D While evil spirits burst with wrath and rage. 

16 V God doth the lightning rule, the flame subdue. 

17 3 His word controls both Vesper and her dew. 

18 ¥ He makes the moon our watchman through the night. 

19 D And by his sun renews the world in light. 

20 “l When dust to dust returns, his breath can call 

0 

or ^ Life from the tomb which is the fate of all. 

21 


96 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


21 

or ^ His crown illuminates the mercy seat, 

22 

And glorifies the cherubs at his feet. 

By the help of this purely dogmatic explanation we shall 
already understand the kabbalistic alphabet of the Tarot. 
Thus, Figure I., entitled the Buffoon, represents the active 
principle in the economy of divine and human autotelia. 
Figure II., vulgarly called Pope Joan, represents dogmatic 
unity based upon numbers, and is the personification of 
the Kabbalah or the Gnosis. Figure III. represents divine 
Spirituality under the emblem of a winged woman, holding 
in one hand the apocalyptic eagle, and in the other the 
world suspended from the end of her sceptre. The other 
emblems are equally clear, and can be explained as easily 
as the first. Turning now to the four suits, namely, Clubs, 
Cups, Swords, and Circles or Pantacles, commonly called 
Deniers —all these are hieroglyphics of the tetragram. Thus, 
the Club is the Egyptian Phallus or Hebrew jod; the Cup 
is the ctei's or primitive he; the Sword is the conjunction 
of both, or the lingam, represented in Hebrew preceding the 
captivity by vau; while the Circle or Pantacle, image of the 
world, is the he final of the divine name. Now let us take a 
Tarot and combine all its emblems one by one into the 
Wheel or ROTA of William Postel; let us group the four 
aces, the four twos, and so on, together; we shall then have 
ten packs of cards giving the hieroglyphic interpretation of 
the triangle of divine names on the scale of the denary, as 
previously tabulated. By referring each number to its 
corresponding Sephira, we may then read them off as 
follows:— 

ntrv> 

Four signs present the name of every name. 

1 Kether. 

The four Aces. 

Four brilliant beams adorn his crown of flame. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


97 


2 Chochmah. 

The four Twos. 

Four rivers ever from his wisdom flow. 

3 Binah. 

The four Threes. 

Four proofs of his intelligence we know. 

4 Chesed. 

The four Fours. 

Four benefactions from his mercy come. 

5 Geburah. 

The four Fives. 

Four times four sins avenged his justice sum. 

6 Tiphereth. 

The four Sixes. 

Four rays unclouded make his beauty known. 

7 Netsah. 

The four Sevens. 

Four times his conquest shall in song be shewn. 

8 Hod. 

The four Eights. 

Four times he triumphs on the timeless plane. 

9 Jesod. 

The four Nines. 

Foundations four his great white throne maintain. 

10 Malchuth. 

The four Tens. 

One fourfold kingdom owns his endless sway. 

As from his crown there streams a fourfold ray. 

By this simple arrangement the kabbalistic meaning of 
each card is exhibited. For example, the five of clubs 
rigorously signifies Geburah of Jod, that is, the justice of 
the creator or the wrath of man; the seven of cups signifies 
the victory of mercy or the triumph of woman; the eight of 
swords signifies conflict or eternal equilibrium; and so of 


98 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


the others. We can thus understand how the ancient 
pontiffs proceeded to make the oracle speak. The chance 
dealing of the lamens invariably produced a fresh kabba- 
listic meaning, exactly true in its combinations, which alone 
were fortuitous; and, seeing that the faith of the ancients 
attributed nothing to chance, they read the answers of 
Providence in the oracles of the Tarot, which were called 
Theraph or Theraphim by the Hebrews, as the erudite 
kabbalist Gaffarel, one of the magicians employed by Car¬ 
dinal Richelieu, was the first to perceive. 

As to the figures, a final couplet will suffice to explain 
them:— 

King, Queen, Knight, Esquire. 

The married pair, the youth, the child, the race; 

Thy path by these to Unity retrace. 

At the end of the Ritual we shall provide further details, 
together with full documents, concerning the marvellous 
Tarot book, which is of all books the most primitive, the 
key of prophecies and dogmas, in a word, the inspiration of 
inspired works, a fact which has remained unperceived 
equally by the science of Court de Gebelin and by the ex¬ 
traordinary intuitions of Eteilla or Alliette. 

The ten Sephiroth and the twenty-two Tarots, form what 
the kabbalists term the thirty-two paths of absolute science. 
With regard to particular sciences, they distinguish them 
into fifty chapters, which they call the fifty gates—among 
Orientals the word gate signifies government or authority. 
The rabbins also divided the Kabbalah into Bereschit, or 
universal Genesis, and Mercavah, or the chariot of Ezekiel; 
then by means of a dual interpretation of the kabbalistic 
alphabets, they formed two sciences, called Gematria and 
Temurah, and so composed the notary art, which is funda¬ 
mentally the complete science of the Tarot signs and their 
complex and varied application to the divination of all 
secrets, whether of philosophy, nature, or the future itself. 
We shall recur in our twentieth chapter to this work. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


99 


11 3 L 

THE MAGIC CHAIN 
Manus Force 

The great magical agent, by us termed the astral light, by 
others the soul of the earth, and designated by old chemists 
under the names of Azoth and Magnesia, this occult, unique, 
and indubitable force, is the key of all empire, the secret 
of all power; it is the winged dragon of Medea, the serpent 
of the Edenic mystery; it is the universal glass of visions, 
the bond of sympathies, the source of love, prophecy, and 
glory. To know how to avail one’s self of this agent is to 
be the trustee of God’s own power; all real, effective magic, 
all occult force is there, and its demonstration is the sole 
end of all genuine books of science. To possess one’s self 
of the great magical agent there are two operations neces- 
sary—to concentrate and project, or, in other words, to 
fix and to move. Fixity has been provided as the basis and 
guarantee of movement by the Author of all things; the 
magus must go to work in like manner. 

It is said that enthusiasm is contagious—and why? Be¬ 
cause it cannot be produced in the absence of collective 
faith. Faith produces faith; to believe is to have a reason 
for willing; to will with reason is to will with power—not, 
I say, with an infinite, but with an indefinite power. What 
operates in the intellectual and moral world obtains still 
more in the physical, and when Archimedes was in want of a 
lever to move the world, what he sought was simply the 
great magical arcanum. One arm of the androgyne figure 
of Henry Khunrath bore the word Coagula and the other 
Solve. To collect and diffuse are nature’s two words— 
but after what manner can we accomplish these operations 
with the astral light or soul of the world? Concentration 


100 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


is by isolation and distribution by the magical chain. Isola¬ 
tion consists in absolute independence for thought, com¬ 
plete liberty for the heart, and perfect continence for the 
senses. Every man who is possessed by prejudices and 
fears, every passionate person who is slave of his passions, 
is incapable of concentrating or coagulating, according to 
the expression of Khunrath, the astral light or soul of the 
earth. All true adepts have been independent even amidst 
torture, sober and chaste till death. The explanation of 
such anomaly is this—in order to dispose of a force, you 
must not be surprised by this force in a way that it may 
dispose of you. But then, cry out those who seek only in 
magic for a method of inordinately satisfying the lusts of 
nature, what good is a power which must not be used for 
our own satisfaction? Unhappy creatures who ask, if I 
told you, how could you grasp it? Are pearls nothing be¬ 
cause they are worthless to the horde of Epicurus? Did 
not Curtius prefer the government of those who had gold 
than its possession by himself? Must we not be some¬ 
thing removed from the common man when we almost pre¬ 
tend to be God? Moreover, I grieve to deject or discourage 
you, but I am not devising the transcendental sciences; 
I teach them, defining their immutable necessities in the 
presentation of their primary and most inexorable condi¬ 
tions. Pythagoras was a free, sober, and chaste man; 
Apollonius of Tyana and Julius Caesar were both of re¬ 
pellent austerity; the sex of Paracelsus was suspected, so 
foreign was he too the weakness of love; Raymond Lully 
carried the severity of life to the most exalted point of 
asceticism; Jerome Cardan exaggerted the practice of fast¬ 
ing till he nearly perished of starvation, if we may accept 
tradition; Agrippa, poor and buffeted from town to town, 
almost died of misery rather than yield to the caprice of a 
princess who insulted the liberty of science. What then 
made the felicity of these men? The knowledge of great 
secrets and the consciousness of power. It was sufficient 
for those great souls. Must one be like unto them in order 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


101 


to know what they knew ? Assuredly not, and the existence 
of this book is perhaps a case in point; but in order to do 
what they did, it is absolutely necessary to take the means 
w r hich they took. But what did they actually accomplish? 
They astonished and subdued the world; they reigned more 
truly than kings. Magic is an instrument of divine good¬ 
ness or demoniac pride, but it is the annihilation of earthly 
joys and the pleasures of mortal life. Why study it? ask 
the luxurious. Merely to know it and possibly after to 
learn mistrust of stupid unbelief or puerile credulity. Men 
of pleasure, and half of these I count for so many women, 
is not gratified curiosity highly pleasurable? Read there¬ 
fore without fear, you will not be magicians against your 
will. Readiness for absolute renunciation is, moreover, 
necessary only in order to establish universal currents and 
transform the face of the world; there are relative magical 
operations, limited to a certain circle, which do not need 
such heroic virtues. We can act upon passions by passions, 
determine sympathies or intipathies, hurt even and heal, 
without possessing the omnipotence of the magus; in this 
case, however, we must realise the risk of a reaction in pro¬ 
portion to the action, to which we may easily fall a victim. 
All this will be explained in our Ritual. 

To make the magic chain is to establish a magnetic 
current which becomes stronger in proportion to the extent 
of the chain. We shall see in the Ritual how these cur¬ 
rents can be produced, and what are the various modes 
of forming the chain. Mesmer’s trough was an exceedingly 
imperfect magic chain; several great circles of illuminati 
in different northern countries possess more potent chains. 
Even that association of Catholic priests, celebrated for 
their occult power and their unpopularity, is established 
upon the plan and follows the conditions of the most potent 
magical chains, and herein is the secret of their force, 
which they attribute solely to the grace or will of God, a 
vulgar and cheap solution for every mystery of power in 
influence or attraction. In the Ritual it will be our task 



102 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


to estimate the sequence of truly magical ceremonies and 
evocations which make up the great work of vocation under 
the name of the Exercises of St Ignatius. 

All enthusiasm propagated in a society by a series of 
communications and practices in common produces a mag¬ 
netic current, and continues or increases by the current. 
The action of the current is to carry away and often to 
exalt beyond measure persons who are impressionable and 
weak, nervous organisations, temperaments inclined to 
hysteria or hallucination. Such people soon become power¬ 
ful vehicles of magical force and efficiently project the 
astral light in the direction of the current itself; oppo¬ 
sition at such a time to the manifestations of the force is, 
to some extent, a struggle with fatality. When the youthful 
Pharisee Saul, or Schol, threw himself, with all the fanati¬ 
cism and all the determination of a sectarian, across the 
aggressive line of Christianity, he unconsciously placed 
himself at the mercy of a power against which he thought 
to prevail, and hence he was struck down by a formidable 
magnetic flash, doubtless the more instantaneous by reason 
of the combined effect of cerebral congestion and sun¬ 
stroke. The conversion of the young Israelite, Alphonsus 
of Ratisbonne, is a contemporary fact which is absolutely 
of the same nature. We are acquainted with a sect of 
enthusiasts whom it is common to deride at a distance, 
and to join, despite one’s self, as soon as they are ap¬ 
proached, even with a hostile intention. I will go further, 
and affirm that magical circles and magnetic currents estab¬ 
lish themselves, and have an influence, according to fatal 
laws, upon those on whom they can act. Each one of us is 
drawn within a circle of relations which constitutes his 
world, and to the influence of which he is made subject. 
The lawgiver of the French Revolution, that man whom the 
most spiritual nation in the whole world acknowledged as 
the incarnation of human reason, Jean Jacques Rousseau, 
was drawn into the most lamentable action of his life, the 
desertion of his children, by the magnetic influence of a 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


103 


libertine circle and a magical current of table-d’hote. He 
describes it simply and ingenuously in his Confessions, but 
it is a fact which has remained unobserved. Great circles 
very often make great men, and vice-versa. There are no 
unrecognised geniuses, there are eccentric men, and the term 
would seem to have been invented by an adept. The man 
who is eccentric in his genius is one who attempts to form 
a circle by combating the central attractive force of estab¬ 
lished chains and currents. It is his destiny to be broken 
or to succeed. Now, what is the twofold condition of success 
in such a case? A central point of stability and a per¬ 
severing circular action of initiative. The man of genius 
is one who has discovered a real law, and is thereby pos¬ 
sessed of an invincible, active, and grinding power. He 
may die in the midst of his work, but that which he has 
willed comes to pass, in spite of his death, and is indeed 
often ensured thereby, because death is a veritable assump¬ 
tion for genius. “When I shall be lifted up from the 
earth,” said the greatest of the initiators, “I will draw 
all things after me.” 

The law of magnetic currents is that of the movement of 
the astral light itself, which is always double, and augments 
in an opposite sense. A great action invariably paves the 
way for a reaction of equal magnitude, and the secret of 
phenomenal successes consists entirely in the foreknowledge 
of reactions. Thus did Chateaubriand, penetrated with 
disgust at the saturnalia of the revolution, foresee and pre¬ 
pare the immense success of his “Genius of Christianity.” 
To oppose one’s self to a current at the beginning of its 
revolution is to court being destroyed by that current, like 
the great and unfortunate Emperor Julian; to oppose one’s 
self to a current which has run its round is to take the 
lead of a contrary current. The great man is he who comes 
seasonably and knows how to innovate opportunely. In the 
days of the apostles, Voltaire would have found no echo for 
his utterances, and might have been merely an ingenious 
parasite at the banquets of Trimalcyon. Now, at the 


104 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


epoch wherein we live, everything is ripe for a fresh out¬ 
burst of evangelical zeal and Christian self-devotion, pre¬ 
cisely by reason of the prevailing general disillusion, 
egoistic positivism, and public cynicism of the coarsest in¬ 
terests. The sucess of certain books and the mystical ten¬ 
dencies of minds are unequivocal symptoms of this wide¬ 
spread disposition. We restore and we build churches only 
to realise more keenly that we are void of belief, only to 
long the more for it; once more does the whole world await 
its Messiah, and he cannot tarry in his coming. Let a man, 
for example, come forward, who by rank or by fortune is 
placed in an exalted position—a pope, a king, even a Jewish 
millionaire—and let this man publicly and solemnly sac¬ 
rifice all his material interests for the weal of humanity; 
let him make himself the saviour of the poor, the dis¬ 
seminator, and even the victim, of doctrines of renuncia¬ 
tion and charity, and he will draw round him an immense 
following; he will accomplish a complete moral revolution 
in the world. But the high place is before all things neces¬ 
sary for such a personage, because, in these days of mean¬ 
ness and trickery, any Word issuing from the lower ranks 
is suspected of interested ambition and imposture. Ye, 
then, who are nothing, ye who possess nothing, aspire not 
to be apostles or messiahs. If you have faith, and would 
act in accordance therewith, get possession, in the first 
place, of the means of action, which are the influence of 
rank and the prestige of fortune. In olden times gold 
was manufactured by science; nowadays science must be 
remade by gold. We have fixed the volatile, and we must 
now volatilise the fixed—in other words, we have ma¬ 
terialised spirit, and we must now spiritualise matter. The 
most sublime utterance now passes unheeded) if it goes 
forth without the guarantee of a name—that is to say, 
of a success which represents a material value. What is 
the worth of a manuscript ? That of the author’s signature 
among the booksellers ? That established reputation known 
as Alexander Dumas et C ie represents one of the literary 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


105 


guarantees of our time, but the house of Dumas is in 
repute only for the romances which are its exclusive pro¬ 
ductions. Let Dumas devise a magnificent Utopia, or dis¬ 
cover a splendid solution of the religious problem, and no 
one will take them seriously, despite the European celebrity 
of the Panurge of modern literature. We are in the age 
of acquired positions, where every one is appraised ac¬ 
cording to his social and commercial standing. Unlimited 
freedom of speech has produced such a strife of words that 
no one inquires what is said, but who has said it. If it be 
Rothschild, his Holiness Pius the Ninth, or even Monseig¬ 
neur Dupanloup, it is something; but if it be Tartempion, 
it is nothing, were he even—which is possible, after all—an 
unrecognised prodigy of genius, knowledge, and good sense. 
Hence to those who would say to me: If you possess the 
secret of great successes, and of a force which can transform 
the world, why do you not make use of them? I would 
answer: This knowledge has come to me too late for my¬ 
self, and I have spent over its acquisition the time and the 
resources which might have enabled me to apply it; I 
offer it to those who are in a position to avail themselves 
of it. Illustrious men, rich men, great ones of this world, 
who are dissatisfied with that which you have, who are 
conscious of a nobler and larger ambition, will you be 
fathers of a new world, kings of a rejuvenated civilisation ? 
A poor and obscure scholar has found the lever of Archi- 
mides, and he offers it to you for the good of humanity 
alone, asking nothing whatsoever in exchange. 

The phenomena which have quite recently perturbed 
America and Europe, as regards table-turning and fluidic 
manifestations, are simply magnetic currents at the be¬ 
ginning of their formation, appeals on the part of nature 
inviting us, for the good of humanity, to re-establish the 
great sympathetic and religious chains. As a fact, stag¬ 
nation in the astral light would mean death to the human 
race, and torpor in this secret agent has already been mani¬ 
fested by alarming symptoms of decomposition and death. 


106 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


For example, cholera-morbus, the potato disease, and the 
blight of the grape, are traceable solely to this cause, as the 
two young shepherds of la Salette saw darkly and sym¬ 
bolically in their dream. The unlooked-for credit which 
awaited their narrative, and the vast concourse of pilgrims 
attracted by a statement so singular and at the same time 
so vague as that of these two children without instruction 
and almost without morality, are proofs of the magnetic 
reality of the fact, and the fluidic tendency of the earth 
itself to operate the cure of its inhabitants. Superstitions 
are instinctive, and all that is instinctive is founded in 
the very nature of things, to which fact the sceptics of 
all times have given insufficient attention. We attribute, 
then, all the strange phenomena of table-turning to the 
universal magnetic agent in search of a chain of enthu¬ 
siasms with a view to the formation of fresh currents. The 
force of itself is blind, but it can be directed by the will 
of man, and is influenced by prevailing opinions. This 
universal fluid—if we decide to regard it as a fluid—being 
the common medium of all nervous organisms, and the 
vehicle of all sensitive vibrations, establishes an actual 
physical solidarity between impressionable persons, and 
transmits from one to another the impressions of imagina¬ 
tion and of thought. The movement of the inert object, 
determined by the undulations of the universal agent, 
obeys the ruling impression, and reproduces in its revela¬ 
tions at one time all the lucidity of the most wonderful 
visions, and at another all the eccentricity and falsehood of 
the most vague and incoherent dreams. The blows re¬ 
sounding on furniture, the clattering of dishes, the self¬ 
playing of musical instruments, are illusions produced by 
the same cause. The miracles of the convulsionaries of 
Saint Medard were of the same order, and seemed fre¬ 
quently to suspend the laws of nature. On the one hand, 
exaggeration produced by fascination, which is the special 
quality of intoxication occasioned by congestions of the 
astral light; on the other, actual oscillations or movements 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


107 


impressed upon inert matter by the subtle and universal 
agent of motion and life. Such is the sole foundation of 
these occurrences which look so marvellous, as we may easily 
demonstrate at will by reproducing, in accordance with 
rules laid down in the Ritual, the most astounding of these 
phenomena, establishing, as can be done quite simply, the 
absence of trickery, hallucination, or error. 

It has frequently happened to me after experiments in 
the magic chain, performed with persons devoid of good 
intention or sympathy, that I have been awakened with a 
start in the night by truly alarming impressions and sensa¬ 
tions. On one such occasion I felt vividly the pressure of 
an unknown hand attempting to strangle me; I rose up, 
lighted my lamp, and set myself calmly to work, seeking to 
profit by my wakefulness and to drive away the phantoms 
of sleep. The books about me were moved with much 
noise, papers were disturbed and rubbed one against an¬ 
other, timber creaked as if on the point of splitting, and 
heavy blows resounded on the ceiling. With curiosity but 
also with tranquility I observed all these phenomena, which 
would not have been less wonderful had they been only the 
product of my imagination, so real did they seem. For the 
rest, I may state that I was in no sense frightened, and 
during this occurrence I was engaged upon something quite 
foreign to the occult sciences. By the repetition of similar 
phenomena I was led to attempt the experience of evoca¬ 
tion, assisted by the magical ceremonies of the ancients, 
when I obtained truly astounding results, which will be set 
forth in the thirteenth chapter of this work. 


108 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


12 t, M 

THE GREAT WORK 

DISCITE CRUX 

The great work is, before all things, the creation of man 
by himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of 
his faculties and his future; it is especially the perfect 
emancipation of his will, assuring him universal dominion 
over Azoth and the domain of Magnesia, in other words, 
full power over the universal magical agent. This agent, 
disguised by the ancient philosophers under the name of 
the first matter, determines the forms of modifiable sub¬ 
stance, and we can really arrive by means of it at metallic 
transmutation and the universal medicine. This is not a 
hypothesis, it is a scientific fact already established and 
rigorously demonstrable. Nicholas Flamel and Raymond 
Lully, both of them poor, indubitably distributed immense 
riches. Agrippa never proceeded beyond the first part of 
the great work, and he died in the ordeal, fighting to pos¬ 
sess himself and to fix his independence. 

Now, there are two Hermetic operations, the one spiritual, 
the other material, and these are mutually dependent. For 
the rest, all Hermetic science is contained in the doctrine of 
Hermes, which is said to have been originally inscribed 
upon an emerald tablet. Its first articles have been already 
expounded, and those follow which are concerned with the 
operation of the great work:—“Thou shalt separate the 
earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, gently, with 
great industry. It rises from earth to heaven, and again it 
descends to earth, and it receives the power of things above 
and of things below. By this means shalt thou obtain the 
glory of the whole world, and all darkness shall depart 
from thee. It is the strong power of every power, for it 
will overcome all that is subtle and penetrate all that is 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


109 


solid. Thus was the world created.” To separate the 
subtle from the gross, in the first operation, which is wholly 
interior, is to set the soul free from all prejudice and all 
vice, which is accomplished by the use of the philosophical 
salt, that is to say, wisdom; of mercury, that is, personal 
skill and application; finally, of sulphur, representing vital 
energy and fire of will. By these are we enabled to change 
into spiritual gold things which are of all least precious, 
even the refuse of the earth. In this sense we must in¬ 
terpret the parables of the choir of philosophers, Bernard 
Trevisan, Basil Valentine, Mary the Egyptian and other 
prophets of alchemy; but in their works, as in the great 
. work, we must adroitly separate the subtle from the gross, 
i the mystical from the positive, allegory from theory. If 
we would read them with profit and understanding, we 
must take them first of all as allegorical in their entirety, 
and then descend from allegories to realities by the way of 
the correspondences or analogies indicated in the one 
dogma:—That which is above is proportional to that which 
is below, and reciprocally. The word Art when reversed, 
or read after the manner of sacred and primitive characters 
from right to left, gives three initials which express the 
different grades of the great w r ork. T signifies triad, theory, 
and travail; R, realisation; A, adaptation. In the twelfth 
chapter of the Ritual, we shall give the processes for 
adaptation, in use among the great masters, especially that 
which is contained in the Hermetic Citadel of Henry Khun- 
rath. In this place we may indicate for the researches 
of our readers an admirable treatise attributed to Hermes 
Trismegistus, entitled Minerva Mundi. It is found only in 
certain editions of Hermes, and contains, beneath allegories 
full of profundity and poetry, the doctrine of individual 
self-creation, or the creative law consequent on the ac¬ 
cordance between two forces, which are termed fixed and 
volatile by alchemists, and are necessity and liberty in the 
absolute order. The diversity of the forms which abound 
in nature is explained, in this treatise, by the diversity 



110 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


of spirits, and monstrosities by the divergence of efforts; 
its reading and assimilation are indispensable for all adepts 
who would fathom the mysteries of nature and devote them¬ 
selves seriously to the search after the great work. 

When the masters in alchemy say that a short time and 
little money are needed to accomplish the works of science, 
above all when they affirm that one vessel is alone needed, 
when they speak of the great and unique athanor, which all 
can use, which is ready to each man’s hand, which all 
possess without knowing it, they allude to philosophical 
and moral alchemy. As a fact, a strong and determined 
will can arrive in a short time at absolute independence, 
and we are all in possession of the chemical instrument, 
the great and sole athanor which answers for the separation 
of the subtle from the gross and the fixed from the volatile. 
This instrument, complete as the world and precise as \ 
mathematics, is represented by the sages under the emblem 
of the pentagram or five-pointed star, which is the absolute 
sign of human intelligence. I will follow the example of 
the wise by forbearing to name it; it is too easy to guess it. 

The Tarot figure which corresponds to this chapter was 
misconstrued by Court de Gebelin and Etteilla, who re¬ 
garded it as a blunder of a German cardmaker. It repre¬ 
sents a man with his hands bound behind him, having two 
bags of silver attached to the armpits, and being suspended 
by one foot from a gibbet formed by the trunks of two 
trees, each with a root of six lopped branches, and by a 
crosspiece, thus completing the figure of the Hebrew tau ^; 
the legs of the victim are crossed, and his head and elbows 
form a triangle. Now, the triangle surmounted by a cross 
signifies, in alchemy, the end and perfection of the great 
work, a signification which is identical with that of the 
letter tau, the last of the sacred alphabet. This hanged 
man is, consequently, the adept, bound by his engagements, 
and spiritualised, that is, having his feet turned towards 
heaven; it is also the antique Prometheus, expiating by 
everlasting torture the penalty of his glorious theft; vul- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


111 


garly, it is the traitor Judas, and his punishment threatens 
betrayers of the great arcanum. Finally, for Kabbalistic 
Jews, the hanged man, who corresponds to their twelfth 
doctrine, that of the promised Messiah, is a protestation 
against the Saviour acknowledged by Christians, and they 
seem to say unto him still:—How canst thou save others, 
since thou canst not save thyself? 

In the Sepher-Toldos-Jeschu, an anti-christian rabinical 
compilation, there occurs a singular parable. Jeschu, says 
the rabbinical author of the legend, was travelling with 
Simon-Barjona and Judas Iscariot. Late and weary they 
came to a lonely house, and, being very hungry, could find 
nothing to eat except an exceedingly lean gosling. It was 
insufficient for three persons, and to divide it would be to 
sharpen without satisfying hunger. They agreed to draw 
lots, but as they were heavy with sleep, “Let us first of all 
slumber,” said Jeschu, “whilst the supper is preparing; 
when we wake we will tell our dreams, and he who has had 
the most beautiful dream shall have the whole gosling to his 
own share. So it was arranged; they slept and they woke. 
As for me, said St Peter, I dreamed that I was the vicar of 
God. And I, said Jeschu, that I was God himself. For 
me, said Judas hypocritically, I dreamed that, being in 
somnambulism, I arose, went softly downstairs, took the 
gosling from the spit, and ate it. Thereupon they also 
went down, but the gosling had completely vanished. Judas 
had a waking dream. 

This anecdote is given, not in the text of the Sepher- 
Toldos-Jeschu itself, but in the rabbinical commentaries on 
that work. The legend is a protest of Jewish positivism 
against Christian mysticism. As a fact, while the faithful 
surrendered themselves to magnificent dreams, the pro¬ 
scribed Israelite, Judas of the Christian civilization, worked, 
sold, intrigued, became rich, possessed himself of this life ’s 
realities, so that he became in a position to advance the 
means of existence to the very forms of worship which had 
so long outlawed him. The ancient adorers of the ark 


112 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


remained true to the cultus of the strong box; the exchange 
is now their temple, and thence they govern the Christian 
world. The laugh is indeed with Judas, who can congratu¬ 
late himself upon not having slept like St Peter. 

In archaic writings preceding the Capacity, the Hebrew 
tau was cruciform, which further confirms our interpreta¬ 
tion of the twelfth plate of the Kabbalistic Tarot. The 
cross, which produces four triangles, is also the sacred sign 
of the duodenary, and on this account it was called the 
Key of heaven by the Egyptians. So Etteilla, confused by 
his protracted researches for the conciliation of the ana¬ 
logical necessities of this symbol with his own personal 
opinion, in which he was influenced by the erudite Court 
de Gebelin, placed in the hand of his upright hanged 
man, by him interpreted as Prudence, a Hermetic caduceus, 
formed by two serpents and a Greek tau. Seeing that he 
understood the necessity for the tau or cross on the twelfth 
leaf of the book of Thoth, he should also have seen the 
multiple and magnificent meaning of the Hermetic hanged 
man, the Prometheus of science, the living man who makes 
contact with earth by his thought alone, whose firm ground 
is heaven, the free and immolated adept, the revealer 
menaced with death, the conjuration of Judaism against 
Christ, which seems to be an involuntary admission of the 
secret divinity of the Crucified, lastly, the sign of the work 
accomplished, the cycle terminated, the intermediary tau , 
which resumes for the first time, before the final denary, 
the signs of the sacred alphabet. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


113 


13 o N 

NECROMANCY 

EX IPSIS MORS 

We have said that the images of persons and things are 
preserved in the astral light. Therein also can be evoked 
the forms of those who are in onr world no longer, and by 
this means are accomplished those mysteries of necromancy 
which are so contested and at the same time so real. The 
Kabbalists who have discoursed concerning the world of 
spirits have simply described what they have seen in their 
evocations. Eliphas Levi Zahed,* who writes this book, 
has evoked, and he has seen. Let us state, in the first 
place, what the masters have written of their visions or 
their intuitions in that which they term the light of glory. 
We read in the Hebrew book concerning the Revolution of 
Souls that there are three classes of souls—the daughters of 
Adam, the daughters of angels, and the daughters of sin. 
According to the same book, there are also three kinds of 
spirits—captive spirits, wandering spirits, and free spirits. 
Souls are sent forth in couples; at the same time certain 
souls of men are born widowed, and their spouses are held 
captive by Lilith and Naemah, the queens of the stryges; 
they are souls condemned to expiate the temerity of a 
celibate’s vow. Hence, when a man renounces the love 
of women from his infancy, he makes the bride who was 
destined for him a slave to the demons of debauch. Souls 
grow and multiply in heaven as bodies do upon earth. 
Immaculate souls are the daughters of the kisses of angels. 

Nothing can enter heaven save that which comes from 
heaven. Hence, after death, the divine spirit which 

* These Hebrew names translated into French are Alphonse Louis 
Constant. 



114 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


animated man returns alone to heaven and leaves two 
corpses, one upon earth, the other in the atmosphere; one 
terrestrial and elementary, the other aerial and sidereal, one 
already inert, the other still animated by the universal 
movement of the soul of the world, yet destined to die 
slowly, absorbed by the astral forces which produced it. 
The terrestrial body is visible; the other is unseen by the 
eyes of earthly and living bodies, nor can it be beheld ex¬ 
cept by the application of the astral light to the translucid, 
which conveys its impressions to the nervous system, and 
thus influences the organ of sight so as to make it perceive 
the forms which are preserved and the words which are 
written in the book of vital light. 

When a man has lived well the astral body evaporates 
like a pure incense ascending towards the upper regions; 
but should he have lived in sin, his astral body, which holds 
him prisoner, still seeks the objects of its passions, and 
wishes to return to life. It torments the dreams of young 
girls, bathes in the steam of spilt blood, and floats about 
the places where the pleasures of its life elapsed; it still 
watches over treasures which it possessed and buried; it 
expends itself in painful efforts, to make fresh material 
organs and so live again. But the stars draw it up and 
absorb it; it feels its intelligence weaken, its memory grad¬ 
ually vanishes, all its being dissolves. ... Its former 
vices rise up before it, assume monstrous shapes, and pur¬ 
sue it; they attack and devour it. . . . The unfortunate 
creature thus successively loses all the members which 
have ministered to his iniquities; then he dies a second time 
and for ever, because he loses his personality and his 
memory. Souls which are destined to live, but are not yet 
completely purified, remain captive for a longer or shorter 
period in the astral body, wherein they are burned by the 
odic light, which seeks to absorb and dissolve them. It is 
in order to escape from this body that suffering souls some¬ 
times enter the bodies of the living and therein dwell in 
that state which Kabbalists term embryonic. Now, it is 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


115 


these aerial bodies which are evoked by necromancy. We 
enter into connection with larvae, with dead or perishing 
substances, by this operation. The beings in question, for 
the most part, cannot speak except by the tingling of our 
ears produced by the nervous shock to which I have re¬ 
ferred, and commonly they can only reason by reflecting 
our thoughts and our reveries. To behold these strange 
forms, we must put ourselves in abnormal condition akin 
to sleep or death, in other words, we must magnetise our¬ 
selves and enter into a kind of lucid and waking som¬ 
nambulism. Then necromancy has real results, and then 
the evocations of magic can produce actual visions. We 
have said that in the great magical agent, which is the 
astral light, there are preserved all impressions of things, 
all images formed either by rays or reflections; in this 
same light our visions come to us, and it is this which in¬ 
toxicates the insane, and leads away their dormant judg¬ 
ment in pursuit of the most bizarre phantoms. To insure 
vision without illusion in this light, a powerful will must 
be with us to isolate reflections and attract rays only. To 
dream awake is to see in the astral light, and the orgies of 
the Sabbath, described by so many sorcerers in their crim¬ 
inal trials, came to them solely in this manner. The 
preparations and the substances used to obtain this result 
were often horrible, as we shall see in the Ritual, but the 
result itself was never doubtful. They beheld, they heard, 
they handled the most abominable, most fantastic, most im¬ 
possible things. We shall return to this subject in our 
fifteenth chapter; at the present moment we are concerned 
only with the evocations of the dead. 

In the spring) of the year 1854 I had undertaken a 
journey to London, that I might escape from internal dis¬ 
quietude, and devote myself, without interruption, to 
science. I had letters of introduction to persons of emi¬ 
nence, who were anxious for revelations from the super¬ 
natural world. I made the acquaintance of several, and 
discovered in them, amidst much that was courteous, a 


116 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


depth of indifference or trifling. They asked me forthwith 
to work wonders, as if I were a charlatan, and I was some¬ 
what discouraged, for, to speak frankly, far from being 
inclined to initiate others into the mysteries of ceremonial 
magic, I had myself shrunk all along from its illusions 
and weariness; moreover, such ceremonies necessitated an 
equipment which would be expensive and hard to collect. 
I buried myself, therefore, in the study of the transcendent 
Kabbalah, and concerned myself no further with English 
adepts, when, returning one day to my hotel, I found a 
^note awaiting me. This note contained half of a card, 
divided transversely, on w T hich I immediately recognised 
the seal of Solomon. It was accompanied by a small sheet 
of paper, on which these words were pencilled:—“To¬ 
morrow, at three o’clock, in front of Westminster Abbey, 
the second half of this card will be given you.” I kept this 
curious assignation. At the appointed spot I found a 
carriage drawn up, and as I held unaffectedly the morsel 
of card in my hand, a footman approached, making a sign 
as he did so, and then opened the door of the equipage. 
It contained a lady in black, wearing a thick veil; she 
motioned to me to take a seat beside her, shewing me at 
the same time the other half of the card. The door closed, 
the carriage drove off, and, the lady raising her veil, I 
saw that my appointment was with an elderly person, with 
grey eyebrows and black eyes of unusual brilliance, and 
strangely fixed in expression. “Sir,” she began, with a 
strongly marked English accent, 11 1 am aware that the law 
of secrecy is rigorous amongst adepts; a friend of Sir 

B- L-, who has seen you, knows that you have 

been asked for phenomena, and that you have refused to 
gratify such curiosity. You are probably without the ma¬ 
terials; I should like to show you a complete magical 
cabinet, but I must exact beforehand the most inviolable 
silence. If you will not give me this pledge upon your 
honour, I shall give orders for you to be driven to your 
home.” I made the required promise, and faithfully keep 




TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


117 


it by divulging neither the name, position, nor abode of this 
lady, whom I soon recognised as an initiate, not exactly of 
the first order, but still of a most exalted grade. We had 
a number of long conversations, in the course of which she 
invariably insisted upon the necessity of practical experience 
to complete initiation. She shewed me a collection of 
magical vestments and instruments, lent me some rare 
books, which I needed; in short, she determined me to 
attempt, at her house, the experiment of a complete evoca¬ 
tion, for which I prepared during a period of twenty-one 
days, scrupulously observing the rules laid down in the 
thirteenth chapter of the Ritual. 

The probation terminated on the 24th of July; it was 
proposed to evoke the phantom of the divine Apollonius, 
and to question it upon two secrets, one which concerned 
myself, and one which interested the lady. She had counted 
on taking part in the evocation with a trustworthy person, 
but this person proved nervous at the last moment, and, 
as the triad or unity is indispensable for magical rites, 
I was left to my own resources. The cabinet prepared for 
the evocation was situated in a turret; it contained four 
concave mirrors, and a species of altar having a white 
marble top, encircled by a chain of magnetized iron. The 
sign of the pentagram, as given in the fifth chapter of 
this work, was carved and gilded on the white marble 
surface; it was drawn also in various colours upon a new 
white lambskin stretched beneath the altar. In the middle 
of the marble table there as a small copper chafing-dish, 
containing charcoal of alder and laurel wood; another 
chafing-dish was set before me on a tripod. I was clothed 
in a white garment, very similar to the vestments of our 
catholic priests, but longer and wider, and I wore upon my 
head a crown of vervain leaves, intertwined with a golden 
chain. I held a new sword in one hand, and in the other 
the Ritual. I kindled two fires with the required and 
prepared substances, and I began reading the evocations of 
the Ritual in a voice at first low, but rising by degrees. 


118 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


The smoke spread, the flame caused the objects upon which 
it fell to waver, then it went out, the smoke still floating 
white and slow about the marble altar; I seemed to feel 
a kind of quaking of the earth, my ears tingled, my heart 
beat quickly. I heaped more twigs and perfumes on the 
chafing-dishes, and as the flame again burst up, I beheld 
distinctly, before the altar, the figure of a man of more 
than normal size, which dissolved and vanished away. I 
recommenced the evocations, and placed myself within a 
circle which I had drawn previously between the tripod 
and the altar. Thereupon the mirror which was behind 
the altar seemed to brighten in its depth, a wan form was 
outlined therein, which increased, and seemed to approach 
by degrees. Three times, and with closed eyes, I invoked 
Apollonius. When I again looked forth there was a man 
in front of me, wrapped from head to foot in a species of 
shroud, which seemed more grey than white; he was lean, 
melancholy and beardless, and did not altogether cor¬ 
respond to my preconceived notion of Apollonius. I ex¬ 
perienced an abnormally cold sensation, and when I en¬ 
deavoured to question the phantom I could not articulate 
a syllable. I therefore placed my hand upon the sign of 
the pentagram, and pointed the sword at the figure, com¬ 
manding it mentally to obey and not alarm me, in virtue 
of the said sign. The form thereupon became vague, and 
suddenly disappeared. I directed it to return, and pres¬ 
ently felt, as it were, a breath close by me, something 
touched my hand which was holding the sword, and the 
arm became immediately benumbed as far as the elbow. 
I divined that the sword displeased the spirit, and I there¬ 
fore placed its point downwards, close by me, within the 
circle. The human figure reappeared immediately, but I 
experienced such an intense weakness in all my limbs, and 
a swooning sensation came so quickly over me, that I made 
two steps to sit down, whereupon I fell into a profound 
lethargy, accompanied by dreams, of which I had only a 
confused recollection when I came again to myself. For 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


119 


several subsequent days my arm remained benumbed and 
painful. The apparition did not speak to me, but it 
seemed that the questions I had designed to ask answered 
themselves in my mind. To that of the lady an interior 
voice replied—Death!—it was concerning a man of whom 
she desired information. As for myself, I sought to know 
whether reconciliation and forgiveness were possible be¬ 
tween two persons who occupied my thoughts, and the 
same inexorable echo within me also answered—Dead! 

I am stating facts as they occurred, but I would impose 
faith on no one. The consequence of this experience on 
myself was something inexplicable. I was no longer the 
same man; something of another world had passed into 
me; I was no longer either sad or cheerful, but I felt a 
singular attraction towards death, unaccompanied, however, 
by any suicidal tendency. I analysed my experience care¬ 
fully, and, notwithstanding a lively nervous repugnance, I 
twice repeated the same experiment, allowing some days 
to elapse between each; there was not, however, sufficient 
difference between the phenomena to warrant me in pro¬ 
tracting a narrative which is perhaps already too long. But 
the net result of these two additional evocations was for me 
the revelation of two Kabbalistic secrets which might 
change, in a short space of time, the foundations and 
laws of society at large, if they came to be known gen¬ 
erally. 

Am I to conclude from all this that I really evoked, 
saw, and touched the great Apollonius of Tyana? I am 
not so hallucinated as to affirm or so unserious as to be¬ 
lieve it. The effect of the probations, the perfumes, the 
mirrors, the pantacles, is an actual drunkenness of the im¬ 
agination, which must act powerfully upon a person other¬ 
wise nervous and impressionable. I do not explain the 
physical laws by which I saw and touched; I affirm solely 
that I did see and that I did touch, that I saw clearly and 
distinctly, apart from dreaming, and this is sufficient to 
establish the real efficacy of magical ceremonies. For the 


120 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


rest, I regard the practice as destructive and dangerous; 
if it became habitual, neither moral nor physical health 
would be able to withstand it. The elderly lady whom I 
have mentioned, and of whom I subsequently had reason 
to complain, was a case in point; despite her asseverations 
to the contrary, I have no doubt that she was addicted to 
necromancy and goetia, She at times lost all self-control, 
at others yielded to senseless fits of passion, for which it 
was difficult to discover a cause. I left London without 
bidding her adieu, and I shall faithfully adhere to my 
engagement by giving no clue to her identity, which might 
connect her name with practices, pursued in all probability 
without the knowledge of her family, which I believe to 
be large and of very considerable position. 

There are evocations of intelligence, evocations of love, 
and evocations of hate; but, once more, there is no proof 
whatsoever that spirits really leave the higher spheres to 
communicate with us; the opposite, as a fact, is more prob¬ 
able. We evoke the memories which they have left in the 
astral light, or common reservoir of universal magnetism. 

It was in this light that the Emperor Julian once saw the 
gods manifest, looking old, ill, and decrepit—fresh proof 
of the influence exercised by current and accredited opinions 
on the reflections of this same magical agent which makes 
our tables talk and answers by taps on the walls. After 
the evocation I have described, I re-read carefully the life 
of Apollonius, who is represented by historians as an ideal 
of antique beauty and elegance, and I then observed that 
towards the end of his life he was starved and tormented 
in prison. This circumstance, which may have remained 
in my memory without my being aware of it, possibly de¬ 
termined the unattractive form of my vision, wdiich I re¬ 
gard solely as the voluntary dream of a waking man. I 
have seen two other persons, whom there is no occasion to 
name, both differing, as regards costume and appearance, 
from what I had expected. For the rest, I commend the 
greatest caution to those who propose devoting themselves ' 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 121 

to similar experiences; their result is intense exhaustion, 
and frequently a shock sufficient to occasion illness. 

I must not conclude this chapter without mentioning the 
curious opinions of certain Kabbalists, who distinguish be¬ 
tween apparent and real death, holding that the two are 
seldom simultaneous. In their idea, the majority of persons 
who are buried are still alive, while a number of others who 
are regarded as living are in reality dead. Incurable mad¬ 
ness, for example, would be with them an incomplete but 
real death, leaving the terrestial body under the purely in¬ 
stinctive control of the sidereal body. When the human 
soul experiences a greater blow than it can bear, it would 
thus become separated from the body, leaving the animal 
soul, or sidereal body, in its place, and these human re¬ 
mains would be to some extent less alive really than a mere 
animal. Dead persons of this kind are said to be recog¬ 
nised by the complete extinction of the moral and affec¬ 
tionate sense; they are neither bad nor good; they are 
dead. Such beings, who are the poisonous fungi of the 
human race, absorb the life of living beings to their fullest 
possible extent, and this is why their proximity benumbs 
the soul and chills the heart. If such corpse-like creatures 
really existed, they would realise all that was recounted 
in former times about brocalaques and vampires. Now, 
are there not certain persons in whose presence one feels 
less intelligent, less good, sometimes even less honest ? Are 
there not some whose vicinity extinguishes all faith and all 
enthusiasm, who draw you by your weaknesses, who govern 
you by your evil propensities, and make you die slowly 
to morality in a torment like that of Mezentius? These 
are dead people whom we mistake for living beings; these 
are vampires whom we regard as friends! 


122 


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14 : O 

TRANSMUTATIONS 

SPHERA LUNAE SEMPITERNUM AUXILIUM 

St Augustine questioned seriously whether Apuleius could 
have been changed into an ass by a Thessalian sorceress, 
and theologians have long debated about the transformation 
of Nebuchadnezzar into a wild beast, which things merely 
prove that the eloquent doctor of Hippo was unacquainted 
with magical secrets and that the theologians in question 
have not advanced far in exegesis. We are concerned in 
this chapter with different and more incredible marvels, 
which are at the same time incontestable. I refer to lycan- 
thropy, or the nocturnal transformation of men into wolves, 
so celebrated in rural tales of the twilight by the histories 
of were-wolves. These histories are so well attested that, 
with a view to their explanation, sceptical science has 
recourse to furious mania and masquerading as animals. 
But such hypotheses are puerile and explain nothing. Let 
us seek elsewhere for the secret of the phenomena which 
have been observed on this subject, and begin with estab¬ 
lishing;—1, That no one has ever been killed by a were¬ 
wolf, except by suffocation, without effusion of blood and 
without wounds; 2, That were-wolves, though tracked, pur¬ 
sued, and even wounded, have never been killed on the 
spot; 3, That persons suspected of these transformations 
have always been found at home, after a were-wolf chase, 
more or less maimed, sometimes dying, but invariably in 
their natural form. 

Let us, next, establish phenomena of a different order. 
Nothing in the world is better borne out by evidence than 
the visible and real presence of P. Alphonsus Ligouri be¬ 
side the dying pope, whilst the same personage was simul- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


123 


taneously seen at home, far from Rome, in prayer and 
ecstasy. Further, the simultaneous presence of the 
missionary Francis Xavier in several places at one time 
has been no less strictly demonstrated. It will be said 
that these are miracles, but we reply that miracles when 
they are genuine are simply facts for science. Apparitions 
of persons dear to us coincident with the moment of their 
death are phenomena of the same order and attributable to 
the same cause. We have spoken of the sidereal body 
which is intermediary between the soul and the physical 
body. Now, this body frequently remains awake while the 
latter sleeps, and passes through all space which universal 
magnetization opens to it. It lengthens without breaking 
the sympathetic chain which attaches it to our heart and 
brain, and it is for this reason that it is so dangerous to 
awaken dreamers suddenly. As a fact, too great a start 
may break the chain in an instant and cause death imme¬ 
diately. The form of our sidereal body is conformed to 
the habitual condition of our thoughts, and it modifies, 
in the long run, the characteristics of the material body. 
This is why Swedenborg, in his somnambulistic intuitions, 
frequently beheld spirits in the shape of various animals. 

Let us now make bold to say that a were-wolf is nothing 
else but the sidereal body of a man whose savage and 
sanguinary instincts are typified by the wolf; who, further, 
whilst his phantom wanders over the country, is sleeping 
painfully in his bed, and dreams that he is actually a wolf. 
What makes the were-wolf visible is the almost somnam¬ 
bulistic excitement caused by the fright of those who be¬ 
hold it, or else the tendency, more particularly in simple 
country persons, to enter into direct communication with 
the astral light, which is the common medium of visions 
and dreams. The hurts inflicted on the were-wolf really 
wound the sleeping person by the odic and sympathetic 
congestion of the astral light, and by the correspondence 
of the immaterial with the material body. Many persons 
will believe that they are dreaming when they read such 


124 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


things as these, and will ask whether we are really our¬ 
selves awake; but we will only request men of science to 
reflect upon the phenomena of gestation, and upon the in¬ 
fluence of the imagination of women on the form of their 
offspring. A woman who had been present at the execu¬ 
tion of a man who was broken upon a wheel gave birth to 
a child with all its limbs shattered. Let anyone explain 
to us how the impression produced upon the soul of the 
mother by a horrible spectacle could so have reacted on the 
child, and we in turn will explain why blows received in 
dreams can really bruise and even grievously wound the 
body of him who receives them in imagination, above all 
when his body is suffering and subjected to nervous and 
magnetic influences. 

To these phenomena and to the occult laws which govern 
them must be referred the effects of bewitchment, of which 
we shall speak hereafter. Diabolical obsessions, and the 
majority of nervous diseases which affect the brain, are 
wounds inflicted on the nervous mechanism by the astral 
light when perverted, that is, absorbed or projected in 
adnormal proportions. All extraordinary and extra-natural 
tensions of the will predispose to obsessions and nervous 
diseases; enforced celibacy, asceticism, hatred, ambition, re¬ 
jected love, are so many generative principles of infernal 
forms and influences. Paracelsus says that the menstrua¬ 
tions of women beget phantoms in the air, and from this 
standpoint convents would be seminaries for nightmares, 
while the devils might be compared to those heads of the 
hydra of Lerne which were reproduced eternally and 
propagated in the very blood from their wounds. The 
phenomena of possession amongst the Ursulines of Loudun, 
so fatal to Urban Grandier, have been misconstrued. The 
nuns were really possessed by hysteria and fanatical imita¬ 
tion of the secret thoughts of their exorcists, which were 
transmitted to their nervous system by the astral light. 
They received the impression of all the hatreds which this 
unfortunate priest had conjured up against him, and this 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


125 


wholly interior communication seemed diabolical and mirac¬ 
ulous to themselves. Hence in this tragical affair every¬ 
one acted sincerely, even to Laubardemont, who, in his 
blind execution of the prejudged verdicts of Cardinal 
Richelieu, believed that he was fulfilling at the same time 
the duties of a true judge, and as little suspected himself 
of being a follower of Pontius Pilate as he would have 
recognised in the sceptical and libertine cure of Saint- 
Pierre-du Marche, a disciple and martyr of Christ. The 
possession of the nuns of Louvier is scarcely more than a 
copy of those of Loudon; the devils invent little and 
plagiarise one another. The process of Gaufridi and Mag¬ 
dalen de la Palud possesses stranger features, for in this 
case the victims are their own accusers. Gaufridi con¬ 
fessed that he was guilty of depriving a number of women 
of the power to defend themselves against his seductions 
by simply breathing in their nostrils. A young and beauti¬ 
ful girl, of noble family, who had been thus insufflated, 
described, in the greatest detail, scenes wherein the un¬ 
chaste seemed to vie with the monstrous and grotesque. 
Such are the ordinary hallucinations of false mysticism and 
ill-kept celibacy. Gaufridi and his mistress were obsessed 
by their mutual chimeras, and the brain of the one reflected 
the nightmares of the other. Was not the Marquis of 
Sade himself infectious for certain depleted and diseased 
natures ? 

The scandalous trial of Father Girard is a new proof of 
the deliriums of mysticism and the singular nervous affec¬ 
tions which it may entail. The trances of la Cadiere, her 
ecstacies, her stigmatas, were all as real as the insensate and 
perhaps involuntary debauchery of her director. She ac¬ 
cused him, when he wished to withdraw from her, and the 
conversion of this young woman was a revenge, for there is 
nothing more cruel than depraved passions. An influential 
body, which intervened in the trial of Grandier for the 
destruction of the possible heretic, in this case rescued 
Father Girard for the honour of the order. Moreover, 


126 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


Grandier and Girard attained the same results by very 
different means, with which we shall be specially con¬ 
cerned in the sixteenth chapter. 

We operate by onr imagination on the imagination of 
others, by our sidereal body on theirs, by our organs on 
their organs, in such a way that, by sympathy, whether of 
inclination or obsession, we reciprocally possess one another, 
and identify ourselves with those upon whom we wish to 
act. Reactions against such dominations frequently cause 
the most pronounced antipathy to succeed the keenest 
sympathy. Love has a tendency to unify beings; in thus 
identifying, it frequently renders them rivals, and, conse¬ 
quently, enemies, if in the depth of the two natures there 
is an unsociable disposition, like pride. To permeate two 
united souls in an equal degree with pride is to disjoin 
them by making them rivals. Antagonism is the necessary 
consequence of a plurality of gods. 

When we dream of a living person, either their sidereal 
body presents itself to ours in the astral light, or at least 
the reflection thereof, and our impressions at the meeting 
often make known the secret dispositions of the person in 
our regard. For example, love fashions the sidereal body 
of the one in the image and likeness of the other, so that 
the psychal medium of the woman is like a man, and that 
of the man like a woman. It was this transfer which the 
Kabbalists sought to express in an occult manner when 
they said, in explanation of an obscure term of Genesis:— 
“God created love by placing a rib of Adam in the breast 
of the woman, and a portion of the flesh of Eve in the 
breast of the man, so that at the bottom of woman’s heart 
there is the bone of man, while at the bottom of man’s 
heart there is the flesh of woman,”—an allegory which is 
certainly not devoid of depth and beauty. 

We have referred, in the previous chapter, to what the 
masters in Kabbalah call the embryonic condition of souls. 
This state, completed after the death of the person who 
thereby possesses another, is often commenced in life', 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


127 


whether by obsession or by love. I knew a young woman, 
whose parents inspired her with a great terror, who took 
suddenly to inflicting upon an inoffensive person the very 
acts she dreaded in them. I knew another who, after 
participating in an evocation concerned with a guilty 
woman suffering in the next world for certain eccentric 
acts, began to imitate, without any reason, the actions of 
the dead person. To this occult power must be attributed 
the terrible influence resident in parental malediction, 
which is feared by all nations on earth, as also the imminent 
danger of magical operations when anyone has not reached 
the isolation of true adepts. This virtue of sidereal trans¬ 
mutation, which really exists in love, explains the allegorical 
marvels of the wand of Circe. Apuleius speaks of a 
Thessalian woman who changed herself into a bird; he won 
the affections of her servant to discover the secrets of 
the mistress, and succeeded only in transforming himself 
into an ass. This allegory contains the most concealed 
secrets of love. Again, the Kabbalists say that when a 
man falls in love with a female elementary—undine, 
sylphide, or gnomide, as the case may be—she becomes 
immortal with him, or otherwise he dies with her. We 
have already seen that elementaries are imperfect and as 
yet mortal men. The revelation we have mentioned, which 
has been regarded merely as a fable, is therefore the dogma 
of moral solidarity in love, which is itself the foundation of 
love, and alone explains all its sanctity and all its power. 
Who, then, is this Circe, that changes her worshippers into 
swine, while, so soon as she is subjected to the bond of 
love, her enchantments are destroyed? She is the ancient 
courtesan, the marble woman of all the ages. A woman who 
is without love absorbs and degrades all who come near 
her; she who loves, on the other hand, diffuses enthusiasm, 
nobility, and life. 

There was much talk in the last century about an adept 
accused of charlatanism, who was termed in his lifetime the 
divine Cagliostro. It is known that he practised evocations, 


128 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


and that in this art he was surpassed only by the illuminated 
Schroepffer. # It is said also that he boasted of his power 
in binding sympathies, and that he claimed to be in pos¬ 
session of the secret of the great work; but that which 
rendered him still more famous was a certain elixir of life, 
which immediately restored to the aged the strength and 
vitality of youth. The basis of this composition was mal- 
voisie wine, and it was obtained by distilling the sperm of 
certain animals with the sap of certain plants. We are in 
possession of the recipe, but our reasons for withholding it 
will be readily understood. 


* See, in the Ritual, Schrcepff er’s secrets and formulas for evocation. 



TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


129 


15 Q P 

BLACK MAGIC 

SAMAEL AUXILIATOR 

We approach the mystery of black magic. We are about 
to confront, even in his own sanctuary, the black god of the 
Sabbath, the formidable goat of Mendes. At this point 
those who are subject to fear should close the book; even 
persons who are a prey to nervous impressions will do well 
to divert themselves or to abstain. We have set ourselves 
a task, and we must complete it. Let us first of all address 
ourselves frankly and boldly to the question: Is there a 
devil? What is the devil? As to the first point, science 
isi silent, philosophy denies it on chance, religion only 
answers in the affirmative. As to the second point, religion 
states that the devil is the fallen angel; occult philosophy 
accepts and explains this definition. It will be unnecessary 
to repeat what we have already said on the subject; we will 
add here a further revelation:— 

In Black Magic, the devil is the great magical agent 

EMPLOYED FOR EVIL PURPOSES BY A PERVERSE WILL. 

The old serpent of the legend is nothing else than the 
universal agent, the eternal fire of terrestrial life, the soul 
of the earth, and the living fount of hell. We have said 
that the astral light is the receptacle of forms, and these 
when evoked by reason are produced harmoniously, but 
when evoked by madness they appear disorderly and mon¬ 
strous; so originated the nightmares of St Anthony and 
the phantoms of the Sabbath. Do, therefore, the evoca¬ 
tions of goetie and demonomania possess a practical re¬ 
sult? Yes, certainly—one which cannot be contested, one 
more terrible than could be recounted by legends! When 
any one invokes the devil with intentional ceremonies, the 


130 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


devil comes, and is seen. To escape dying from horror at 
the sight, to escape catalepsy or idiocy, one must be al¬ 
ready mad. Grandier was a libertine through indevotion, 
and perhaps also through scepticism; excessive zeal, fol¬ 
lowing on the aberrations of asceticism and blindness of 
faith, depraved Girard, and made him deprave in his turn. 
In the fifteenth chapter of our Ritual we shall give all the 
diabolical evocations and practices of black magic, not that 
they may be used, but that they may be known and judged, 
and that such insanities may be put aside for ever. 

M. Eudes de Mirville, whose book upon table-turning 
made a certain sensation recently, will possibly be contented 
and discontented at the same time with the solution here 
given of black magic and its problems. As a fact, we 
maintain, like himself, the reality and prodigious nature of 
the facts; with him also we assign them to the old serpent, 
the secret prince of this world; but we are not agreed as to 
the nature of this blind agent, which, under different direc¬ 
tions, is at once the instrument of all good and of all evil, 
the minister of prophets and the inspirer of pythonesses. 
In a word, the devil, for us, is force placed temporarily at 
the disposal of error, even as mortal sin is, to our thinking, 
the persistence of the will in what is absurd. M. de Mir¬ 
ville is therefore a thousand times right, but he is once and 
one great time wrong. 

What we must exclude above all from the realm of 
existences is the arbitrary. Nothing happens by chance, 
nor yet by the autocracy of a good or evil will. There are 

two houses in heaven, and the lower house of Satan is 

« 

restrained in its extremes by the senate of divine wisdom. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


131 


16. ^ Q 

BEWITCHMENTS 

FONS OCULUS FULGUR 

When a man gazes unchastely upon any woman lie pro¬ 
fanes that woman, said the Great Master. What is willed 
with persistence is done. Every real will is confirmed by 
acts; every will confirmed by an act is action. Every 
action is subject to a judgment, and such judgment is 
eternal. These are dogmas and principles from which it 
follows that the good or evil which we will, to others as to 
ourselves, according to the capacity of our will and within 
the sphere of our action, will infallibly take place, if the 
will be confirmed and the determination fixed by acts. 
The acts should be analogous to the will. The intent to do 
harm or to excite love, in order to be efficacious, must be 
confirmed by deeds of hatred or affection. Whatsoever 
bears the impression of a human soul belongs to that soul; 
whatsoever a man has appropriated after any manner be¬ 
comes his body in the broader acceptation of the term, and 
anything which is done to the body of a man is felt, medi¬ 
ately or immediately, by his soul. It is for this reason that 
every species of hostility towards one’s neighbour is re¬ 
garded by moral theology as the beginning of homicide. 
Bewitchment is a homicide, and the more infamous because 
it eludes self-defence by the victim and punishment by 
law. This principle being established to exonerate our 
conscience, and for the warning of the weak vessels, let us 
affirm boldly that bewitchment is possible. Let us even go 
further and lay down that it is not only possible, but in 
some sense necessary and fatal. It is continually going on 
in the social world, unconsciously both to agents and pa¬ 
tients. Involuntary bewitchment is one of the most terrible 
dangers of human life. Passional sympathy inevitably 


132 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


subjects the hottest desire to the strongest will. Moral 
maladies are more contagious than physical, and there are 
some triumphs of infatuation and fashion which are com¬ 
parable of leprosy or cholera. We may die of an evil ac¬ 
quaintance as well as of a contagious touch, and the fright¬ 
ful plague which, during recent centuries only, has 
avenged in Europe the profanation of the mysteries of 
love, is a revelation of the analogical laws of nature, and 
at the same time offers only a feeble image of the moral 
corruptions which follow daily on an equivocal sympathy. 
There is a story of a jealous, and infamous man who, to 
avenge himself on a rival, contracted an incurable dis¬ 
order, and made it the common scourge and anathema of a 
divided bed. This atrocious history is that of every ma¬ 
gician, or rather of every sorcerer who practises bewitch¬ 
ments. He poisons himself in order that he may poison 
others; he damns himself that he may torture others; he 
draws in hell with his breath in order that he may expel it 
by his breath; he wounds himself to death that he may 
inflict death on others; but possessed of this unhappy 
courage, it is positive and certain that he will poison and 
slay by the mere projection of his perverse will. There 
are some forms of love which are as deadly as hatred, and 
the bewitchments of goodwill are the torment of the wicked. 
The prayers offered to God for the conversion of a man 
bring misfortune to that man if he will not be converted. 
As we have already said, it is weariness and danger to 
strive against the fluidic currents occasioned by the chains 
of wills in union. 

Hence there are two kinds of bewitchment, voluntary 
and involuntary; physical and moral bewitchment may be 
also distinguished. Power attracts power, life attracts 
life, health attracts health; this is a law of nature. If 
two children live, above all, if they sleep together, and if 
one be weak while the other is strong, the strong will ab¬ 
sorb the weak, and the latter will waste away. For this 
reason, it is important that children should always sleep 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


133 


alone. In conventual seminaries certain pupils absorb the 
intelligence of the others, and in every given circle of men, 
an individual speedily appears who avails himself of the 
wills of the rest. Bewitchment by means of currents is 
exceedingly common, as we have already observed; mor¬ 
ally as well as physically, most of us are carried away.by 
the crowd. What, however, we have proposed to exhibit 
more especially in this chapter is the almost absolute power 
of the human will upon the determination of its acts and 
the influence of every outward demonstration upon out¬ 
ward things. 

Voluntary bewitchments are still frequent in our rural 
places because natural forces, among ignorant and isolated 
persons, operate without being diminished by any doubt 
or any diversion. A frank, absolute hatred, unleavened by 
rejected passion or personal cupidity is, under certain 
given conditions, a death-sentence for its object. I say un¬ 
mixed with amorous passion or cupidity, because a desire, 
being an attraction, counterbalances and annuls the power 
of projection. For example, a jealous person will never 
efficaciously bewitch his rival, and a greedy heir will never 
by the mere fact of his will succeed in shortening the days 
of a miserly and long-lived uncle. Bewitchments at¬ 
tempted under such conditions reflect upon the operator 
and help rather than hurt their object, setting him free 
from a hostile acfion which destroys itself by excessive ex¬ 
aggeration. The term envoutement (bewitchment) so 
strong in its Gaelic simplicity, admirably expresses what it 
means, the act of enveloping some one, so to speak, in a 
formulated will. The instrument of bewitchments is the 
great magic agent which, under the influence of an evil 
will, becomes really and positively the demon. Witchcraft, 
properly so called, that is ceremonial operation with in¬ 
tent to bewitch, acts only on the operator, and serves to fix 
and confirm his will, by formulating it with persistence 
and labour, the two conditions which make volition effica¬ 
cious. The more difficult or horrible the operation, the 


134 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


greater is its power, because it acts more strongly on the 
imagination and confirms effort in direct ratio of resist¬ 
ance. This explains the bizarre nature and even atrocious 
character of the operations in black magic, as practised by 
the ancients and in the middle ages, the diabolical masses, 
administration of sacraments to reptiles, effusions of blood, 
human sacrifices, and other monstrosities, which are the 
very essence and reality of goetia or nigromancy. Such 
are the practices which from all time have brought down 
upon sorcerers the just repression of the laws. Black 
magic is really only a graduated combination of sacrileges 
and murders designed for the permanent perversion of a 
human will and for the realisation in a living man of the 
hideous phantom of the demon. It is, therefore, properly 
speaking, the religion of the devil, the cultus of darkness, 
hatred of good carried to the height of paroxysm; it is the 
incarnation of death, and the persistent creation of hell. 

The Kabbalist Bodin, who has been erroneously consid¬ 
ered of a feeble and superstitious mind, had no other 
motive in writing his Demonomania than that of warning 
people against dangerous incredulity. Initiated by the 
study of the Kabbalah into the true secrets of magic, he 
trembled at the danger to which society was exposed by 
the abandonment of this power to the wickedness of men. 
Hence he attempted what at the present time M. Eudes de 
Mirville is attempting amongst ourselves; he gathered facts 
without interpreting them, and affirmed in the face of in¬ 
attentive or pre-occupied science the existence of the occult 
influences and criminal operations of evil magic. In his 
own day Bodin received no more attention than will be 
given to M. Eudes de Mirville, because it is not enough to 
indicate phenomena and to prejudge their cause if we 
would influence earnest men; we must study, explain, and 
demonstrate such cause, and this is precisely what we are 
ourselves attempting. Will better success crown our own 
efforts? 

It is possible to die through the love of certain people as 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


135 


by their hate; there are absorbing* passions, under the 
breath of which we feel ourselves depleted like the spouses 
of vampires. Not only do the wicked torment the good, 
but unconsciously the good torture the wicked. The gentle¬ 
ness of Abel was a long and painful bewitchment for the 
ferocity of Cain. Among evil men, the hatred of good 
originates in the very instinct of self-preservation; more¬ 
over, they deny that what torments them is good, and, for 
their own peace, are driven to deify and justify evil. In 
the sight of Cain, Abel was a hypocrite and coward, who 
abused the pride of humanity by his scandalous submis¬ 
sions to divinity. How much must this first murderer have 
endured before making such a frightful attack upon his 
brother? Had Abel understood, he would have been 
afraid. Antipathy is the presentiment of a possible be¬ 
witchment, either of love or hatred, for we find love fre¬ 
quently succeeding repulsion. The astral light warns us 
of coming influences by its action on the more or less sensi¬ 
ble, more or less active, nervous system. Instantaneous 
sympathies, electric loves, are explosions of the astral light, 
which are as exactly and mathematically demonstrable as 
the discharge of strong magnetic batteries. Thereby we 
may see what unexpected dangers threaten an uninitiated 
person who is perpetually fooling with fire in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of invisible powder-mines. We are saturated 
with the astral light, and we project it unceasingly to make 
room for and to attract fresh supplies. The nervous in¬ 
struments, which are specially designed either for attrac¬ 
tion or projection, are the eyes and hands. The polarity 
of the hands is resident in the thumb, and hence, according 
to the magical tradition which still lingers in rural places, 
whenever anyone is in suspicious company, he should keep 
the thumb doubled up and hidden in the hand, and while 
in the main avoiding a fixed glance at any one, still being 
the first to look at those whom we have reason to fear, so 
as to escape unexpected fluidic projections and fascinating 
regards. 


136 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


There are certain animals which have the power of 
breaking the currents of astral light by an absorption pe¬ 
culiar to themselves. They are violently antipathetic to 
us, and possess a certain sorcery of the eye: the toad, the 
basilisk, and the tard are instances. These animals, when 
tamed and carried alive on the person, or kept in occupied 
rooms, are a guarantee against the hallucinations and 
trickeries of astral intoxication, a term we make use of 
here for the first time, one which explains all the phenom¬ 
ena of unbridled passions, mental exaltations, and folly. 
Tame toads and tards, my dear sir, the disciple of Voltaire 
will say to me; carry them about with you, and write no 
more. To which I may answer, that I shall seriously think 
of doing so as soon as ever I feel tempted to laugh at any¬ 
thing I do not understand, and to treat those whose knowl¬ 
edge and wisdom I fail to understand, as fools or as 
madmen. Paracelsus, the greatest of the Christian magi, 
opposed bewitchment by the practices of a contrary be¬ 
witchment. He composed sympathetic remedies, and ap¬ 
plied them, not to the suffering members, but to represen¬ 
tations of those members, formed and consecrated according 
to magical ceremonial. His successes were incredible, and 
never has any physician approached Paracelsus in his 
marvels of healing. But Paracelsus had discovered mag¬ 
netism long before Mesmer, and had carried to its final 
consequences this luminous discovery, or rather this initia¬ 
tion into the magic of the ancients, who better than us 
understood the great magical agent, and did not regard 
the astral light, azoth, the universal magnesia of the sages, 
as an animal and a special fluid emanating only from par¬ 
ticular creatures. In his occult philosophy, Paracelsus 
opposes ceremonial magic, the terrible power of which he 
certainly did not ignore, but he sought to decry its prac¬ 
tices so as to discredit black magic. He locates the omnipo¬ 
tence of the magnus in the interior and occult magnes, and 
the most skillful magnetisers of our own day could not ex¬ 
press themselves better. At the same time he counselled 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


137 


the employment of magical symbols, talismans above all, in 
the cure of diseases. In our eighteenth chapter we shall 
have occasion to return to the talismans of Paracelsus, 
while following Gaffarel upon the great question of occult 
iconography and numismatics. 

Bewitchment may also be cured by substitution, when 
that is possible, and by the rupture or deflection of the 
astral current. The rural traditions on all these points are 
admirable, and undoubtedly of remote antiquity; they are 
remnants of the instruction of the Druids, who were 
initiated in the mysteries of Egypt and India by wander¬ 
ing hierophants. Now, it is well known in vulgar magic 
that a bewitchment—that is, a will persistently confirmed 
in ill doing, invariably has its results, and cannot draw back 
without risk of death. The sorcerer who liberates any one 
from a charm must have another object for his malevo- 
in ill doing, invariably has its result, and cannot draw 
lence, or it is certain that he himself will be smitten, and 
will perish as the victim of his own spells. The astral 
movement being circular, every azotic or magnetic emis¬ 
sion which does not encounter its medium returns with 
force to its point of departure, thus explaining one of the 
strangest histories in a sacred book, that of the demons 
sent into the swine, which thereupon cast themselves into 
the sea. This act of high initiation was nothing else but 
the rupture of a magnetic current infected by evil wills. 
Our name is legion, for we are many, said the instinctive 
voice of the possessed sufferer. Possessions by the demon 
are bewitchments, and such cases are innumerable at the 
present day. A holy monk who has devoted himself to the 
service of the insane, Brother Hilarion Tissot, has suc¬ 
ceeded, by long experience and incessant practice, in 
curing a number of patients, by unconsciously using the 
magnetism of Paracelsus. He attributes most of his cases 
either to disorder of the will or to the perverse influence 
of external wills: he regards all crimes as acts of madness, 
and would treat the wicked as diseased, instead of exas- 


138 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


perating and making them incurable, under the pretense 
of punishing them. What space of time must still elapse 
ere poor Brother Hilarion Tissot shall be hailed as a man 
of genius! And how many serious men, when they read 
this chapter, will say that Tissot and myself should treat 
one another according to our common ideas, but should re¬ 
frain from publishing our theories, if we do not wish to be 
reckoned as physicians worthy of a hospital for incurables! 
It revolves, notwithstanding, said Galileo, stamping his 
foot upon the earth. Ye shall know the truth, and the 
truth shall make you free, said the Saviour of men. It 
might also be added: Ye shall love justice, and justice 
shall make you whole men. A vice is a poison, even for the 
body; true virtue is a pledge of longevity. 

The method of ceremonial bewitchments varies with 
times and persons; all subtle and domineering people find 
its secrets and its practice within themselves, without even 
actually calculating about them or reasoning on their 
sequence. Herein they follow instinctive inspirations of 
the great agent, which, as we have already said, accommo¬ 
dates itself marvelously to our vices and our virtues; it 
may, however, be generally laid down that we are subjected 
to the wills of others by the analogies of our tendencies, 
and above all, of our faults. To pamper the weaknesses of 
an individuality is to possess ourselves of that individual¬ 
ity and convert it into an instrument in the order of the 
same errors or depravities. Now, when two natures whose 
defects are analogous become subordinated one to another, 
the result is a sort of substitution of the stronger for the 
weaker, an actual obsession of one mind by the other. Very 
often the weaker may struggle and seek to revolt, but it only 
falls deeper in servitude. So did Louis XIII. conspire 
against Richelieu, and subsequently, so to speak, sought his 
pardon by abandoning his accomplices. We have all a 
ruling defect, which is for our soul as the umbilical cord 
of its sinful birth, and it is by this the enemy can always 
seize us—for some vanity, for others idleness, for the ma- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


139 


jority egotism. Let a wicked and crafty mind avail itself 
of this snare and we are lost; we may not go mad or turn 
idiots, but we become positively alienated, in all the force 
of the expression—that is, we are subjected to a foreign 
impulsion. In such a state one dreads instinctively every¬ 
thing that might bring us back to reason, and will not even 
listen to representations that are opposed to our infatua¬ 
tion. Here is one of the most dangerous disorders which 
can affect the moral nature. The sole remedy for such a 
bewitchment is to make use of madness itself in order to 
cure madness, to provide the sufferer with imaginary sat¬ 
isfactions in the opposite order to that wherein he is now 
immersed. Endeavour, for example, to cure an ambitious 
person by making him desire the glories of heaven—mystic 
remedy; cure one who is dissolute by true love—natural 
remedy; obtain honourable successes for a vain person; 
exhibit unselfishness to the avaricious, and procure for 
them legitimate profit by honourable participation in gen¬ 
erous enterprises, &c. Acting in this way upon the moral 
nature, we may succeed in curing a number of physical 
maladies, for the moral effects the physical in virtue of the 
magical axiom:—“That which is above is like that which 
is below. ’ ’ This is why the Master said, when speaking of 
the paralysed woman: Satan has bound her. A disease 
invariably originates in a deficiency or an excess, and ever 
at the root of a physical evil we shall find a moral disorder. 
This is an unchanging law of nature. 


I 


*, • i 


140 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


17 fi R 

ASTROLOGY 

STELLA OS INFLEXUS 

Of all the arts which have originated in ancient magian 
wisdom astrology is now the most misunderstood. No one 
believes any longer in the universal harmonies of nature 
and in the necessary interlacing of all effects with all 
causes. Moreover, true astrology, that which connects with 
the unique and universal dogma of the Kabbalah, became 
profaned among the Greeks and among the Romans of the 
decline. The doctrine of the seven spheres and the three 
mobilies, primitively issuing from the sephirotic decade, 
the character of the planets governed by angels, whose 
names have been changed into those of Pagan divinities, 
the influence of the spheres on one another, the destiny at¬ 
tached to numbers, the scale of proportion between the 
celestial hierarchies corresponding to the human hierarchies 
all this has been materialised and degraded into supersti¬ 
tion by genethliacal soothsayers and erecters of horoscopes 
during the decline and the middle ages. The restoration 
of astrology to its primitive purity would be, in a sense, the 
creation of an entirely new science; here let us attempt 
merely to indicate its first principles, with their more im¬ 
mediate and approximate consequences. 

We have said that the astral light receives and preserves 
the impressions of all visible things; it follows from this 
that the daily position of the heaven is reflected in this 
light, which, being the chief agent of life, operates the con¬ 
ception, gestation, and birth of children by a sequence of 
apparatuses naturally designed to this end. Now, if this 
light be sufficiently prodigal of images to impart to the 
fruit of the womb the visible imprints of a maternal fan¬ 
tasy or appetite, still more will it transmit to the plastic 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


141 


and indeterminate temperament of a newly-born child the 
atmospheric impressions and diverse influences which, in 
the entire planetary system, are consequent at a given 
moment upon such or such particular aspect of the stars. 
Nothing is indifferent in nature; a stone more or a stone 
less upon a road may break or completely modify the des¬ 
tinies of the greatest men or even the largest empires; still 
more must the position of this or that star in the sky have 
an influence on the child who is bom, who enters by the 
very fact of his birth into the universal harmony of the 
sidereal world. The stars are bound to one another by the 
attractions which hold them in equilibrium and cause them 
to move with uniformity through space. From all spheres 
unto all spheres there stretch these indestructible threads 
of light, and there is no point upon any planet to which one 
of them is not attached. The true adept in astrology must, 
therefore, give heed to the precise time and place of the 
birth which is in question; then, after an exact calculation 
of the astral influences, it remains for him to compute the 
chances of estate, that is to say, the advantages or hin¬ 
drances which the child must one day meet by reason of 
position, relatives, inherited tendencies, and hence natural 
proclivities, in the fulfillment of his destinies. Finally, he 
will still have to take into consideration human liberty and 
its initiative, should the child eventually come to be a true 
man, and to isolate himself by an intrepid will from fatal 
influences and from the chain of destiny. It will be seen 
that we do not allow too much to astrology, but so much 
as we leave it is indubitable; it is the scientific and magical 
calculus of probabilities. 

Astrology is as ancient as astronomy and indeed it is 
more ancient; all seers of lucid antiquity have accorded it 
their fullest confidence; now, we must not condemn and 
reject in a shallow manner anything which comes before us 
protected and supported by such imposing authorities. 
Long and patient observations, conclusive comparisons, fre¬ 
quently repeated experiences, must have led the old sages 


142 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


to their decisions, and to refute them the same labour must 
be undertaken from an opposite standpoint. Paracelsus 
was perhaps the last of the great practical astrologers; he 
cured diseases by talismans formed under astral influences; 
he distinguished upon all bodies the mark of their dom¬ 
inant star; there, according to him, was the true universal 
medicine, the absolute science of nature, lost by man’s own 
fault, and recovered only by a small number of initiates. 
To recognise the sign of each star upon men, animals, and 
plants, is the true natural science of Solomon, that science 
which is said to be lost, but the principles of which are pre¬ 
served notwithstanding, as are all other secrets, in the 
symbolism of the Kabbalah. It will be readily understood 
that in order to read the stars one must know the stars 
themselves; now, this knowledge is obtained by the kabbal- 
istic domification of the sky and by the understanding of 
the celestial planisphere, recovered and explained by 
Gaffarel. In this planisphere the constellations form 
Hebrew letters, and the mythological figures may be re¬ 
placed by the symbols of the Tarot. To this same plani¬ 
sphere Gaffarel refers the origin of patriarchal writing, 
and in the chains of starry attraction the first lineaments 
of primitive characters may very well have been found, in 
which case the celestial book would have served as the 
model of Henoch’s, and the kabbalistic alphabet would have 
been the synopsis of the entire sky. This is not wanting in 
poetry, nor, above all, in probability, and the study of the 
Tarot, which is evidently the primitive and hieroglyphic 
work of Henoch, as was divined by the erudite William 
Ptostel, is sufficient to convince us hereof. 

The signs imprinted in the astral light by the reflection 
and attraction of the stars is reproduced, therefore, as the 
sages have discovered, on all bodies which are formed by 
the conjunction of that light. Men bear the signs of their 
star on their forehead chiefly, and in their hands; animals 
in their whole form, and in their individual signs; plants 
in their leaves and seed; minerals in their veins and their 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


143 


grain. The study of these characters was the entire life- 
work of Paracelsus, and the figures on his talismans are the 
result of his researches; he has, however, left us no key to 
them, so that the astral kabbalistic alphabet with its corre¬ 
spondences still remains to be done; as regards publicity, 
the science of unconventional magical writing stopped with 
the planisphere of Gaffarel. The serious art of divination 
rests wholly in the knowledge of these signs. Chiromancy 
is the art of reading the writing of the stars in the lines of 
the hand, and physiognomy seeks the same or analogous 
characters upon the countenance of its inquirers. As a 
fact, the lines formed on the human face by nervous con¬ 
tractions are determined fatally, and the radiation of the 
nervous tissue is absolutely analogous to those networks 
which are formed between the worlds by the chains of 
starry attraction. The fatalities of life are, therefore, writ¬ 
ten necessarily in our wrinkles, and a first glance frequently 
reveals upon the forehead of a stranger either one or more 
of the mysterious letters of the kabbalistic planisphere. 
Should the letter be jagged and laboriously inscribed, there 
has been a struggle between will and fatality, and in his 
most powerful emotions and tendencies, the individual's 
entire past manifests to the magus; from this it becomes 
easy to conjecture the future, and if events occasionally 
deceive the sagacity of the diviner, he who has consulted 
him will remain none the less astounded and convinced by 
the superhuman knowledge of the adept. 

The human head is formed upon the model of the celes¬ 
tial spheres; it attracts and it radiates, and in the concep¬ 
tion of a child, this it is which first forms and manifests. 
Hence the head is subject in an absolute manner to astral 
influence, and evidences its several attractions by its diverse 
protuberances. The final word of phrenology is to be 
found, therefore, in scientific and purified astrology, the 
problems of which we point out to the patience and good 
faith of scholars. 

According to Ptolemy, the sun dries up and the moon 


144 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


moistens ; according" to the kabbalists, the sun represents 
rigorous Justice, while the moon is in sympathy with 
Mercy. It is the sun which produces storms, and, by a 
kind of gentle atmospheric pressure, the moon occasions 
the ebb and flow, or, as it were, the respiration of the sea. 
We read in the Zohar, one of the great sacred books of the 
Kabbalah, that 4 ‘the magical serpent, the son of the Sun, 
was about to devour the world, when the Sea, daughter of 
the Moon, set her foot upon his head and subdued him.” 
For this reason, among the ancients, Venus was the daugh¬ 
ter of the Sea, as Diana was identical with the Moon. 
Hence also the name of Mary signifies star or salt of the 
sea. To consecrate this kabbalistic doctrine in the belief 
of the vulgar, it is said in prophetic language: The woman 
shall crush the serpent’s head. 

Jerome Cardan, one of the boldest students, and, beyond 
contradiction .the most skilful astrologer of his time— 
Jerome Cardan, who, if we accept the legend of his death, 
was a martyr to his faith in astrology, has left behind him 
a calculation by means of which any one can foresee the 
good or evil fortune special to all the years of his life. His 
theory was based upon his own experiences, and he assures 
us that the calculation never deceived him. To ascertain 
the fortune of a given year, he sums up the events of those 
which have preceded it by 4, 8, 12, 19, and 30; the number 
4 is that of realisation; 8 is the number of Venus or natural 
things; 12 belongs to the cycle of Jupiter, and corresponds 
to successes; 19 has reference to the cycles of the Moon and 
of Mars; the number 30 is that of Saturn or Fatality. 
Thus, for example, I desire to ascertain what will befall me 
in this present year 1855; I pass in review the decisive 
events in the order of life and progress which occurred four 
years ago; the natural felicity or misfortune of eight years 
back; the successes or failures of twelve years since; the vi¬ 
cissitudes and miseries or diseases which overtook me nine¬ 
teen years from now, and my tragic or fatal experiences of 
thirty years back. Then, taking into account irrevocably ac- 



TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


145 


complished facts and the advance of time, I calculate the 
chances analogous to those which I owe already to the in¬ 
fluence of the same planets, and I conclude that in 1851 I 
had employment which was moderately but sufficiently re¬ 
munerative, with some embarrassment of position; in 1847 
I was violently separated from my family, with great at¬ 
tendant sufferings for mine and me; in 1843 I travelled 
as an apostle, addressing the people, and suffering the per¬ 
secution of ill-meaning persons; briefly, I was at once 
honoured and proscribed. Finally, in 1825 family life 
came to an end for me, and I engaged definitely in a fatal 
path which led me to science and misfortune. I may 
therefore suppose that I shall this year experience toil, 
poverty, vexation, heart-exile, change of place, publicity, 
and contradictions, with some eventuality which will be 
decisive for the rest of my life; every indication in the 
present leads me to endorse this forecast. Hence I con¬ 
clude that, for myself and for this year, experience com¬ 
pletely confirms the precision of Cardan’s astrological 
calculus, which, furthermore, connects with the climacteric 
years of ancient astrologers. This term signifies arranged 
in scales or calculated on the degrees of a scale. Johannes 
Trithemius in his book on Secondary Causes has very curi¬ 
ously computed the return of fortunate or calamitous years 
for all the empires of the world. In the twenty-first chaper 
of our Ritual we shall give an exact analysis; of this work, 
one even more clear than the original, together with a 
continuation of the labour of Trithemius to our own days 
and the application of his magical scale to contemporary 
events, so as to deduce the most striking probabilities 
relative to the immediate future of France, Europe, and 
the world. 

According to all the grand masters in astrology, comets 
are the stars of exceptional heroes, and they only visit earth 
to signalise great changes; the planets preside over collec¬ 
tive existences and modify the destinies of mankind in the 
aggregate; the fixed stars, more remote and more feeble in 


146 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


their action, attract individuals and determine their ten¬ 
dencies; sometimes a group of stars combine to influence 
the destinies of a single man, while often a great number of 
souls are drawn by the distant rays of the same sun. When 
we die, our interior light in departing follows the attraction 
of its star, and thus it is that we live again in other uni¬ 
verses. where the soul makes for itself a new garment, 
analogous to the development or diminution of its beauty; 
for our souls, when separated from our bodies, resemble 
revolving stars; they are globules of animated light which 
always seek their centre for the recovery of their equilib¬ 
rium and their true movement. Before all things, how¬ 
ever, they must liberate themselves from the folds of the 
serpent, that is, the unpurified astral light which envelopes 
and imprisons them, unless the strength of their will can lift 
them beyond its reach. The immersion of the living star in 
the dead light is a frightful torment, comparable to that of 
Mezentius. Therein the soul freezes and burns at the same 
time, and has no means of getting free except by re-entering 
the current of exterior forms and assuming a fleshly en¬ 
velope, then energetically battling against instincts to 
strengthen that moral liberty which will permit it at the 
moment of death to break the chains of earth and wing its 
flight in triumph towards the star of consolation which has 
smiled in light upon it. Following this clue, we can under¬ 
stand the nature of the fire of hell, which is identical with 
the demon or the old serpent; we can gather also wherein 
consist the salvation and reprobation of men, all called and 
all successively elected, but in small number, after having 
risked falling into the eternal fire through their own fault. 

Such is the great and sublime revelation of the magi, a 
revelation which is the mother of all symbols, of all dogmas, 
of all religions. We can realise already how far Dupuis 
was mistaken in regarding astronomy as the source of every 
cultus. It is astronomy, on the contrary, which has sprung 
from astrology, and primitive astrology is one of the 
branches of the holy Kabbalah, the science of sciences, and 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


147 


the religion of religions. Hence upon the seventeenth page 
of the Tarot we find an admirable allegory—a naked 
woman, typifying Truth, Nature, and Wisdom at one and 
the same time, turns two ewers towards the earth, and pours 
out fire and water upon it; above her head glitters the 
septenary, starred about an eight-pointed star, that of 
Venus, symbol of peace and love; the plants of earth are 
flourishing around the woman, and on one of them the 
butterfly of Psyche has alighted; this emblem of the soul 
is replaced in some copies of the sacred book by a bird, 
which is a more Egyptian and probably a more ancient 
symbol. In the modern Tarot the plate is entitled the 
Glittering Star; it is analogous to a number of Hermetic 
symbols, and is also in correspondence with the Blazing 
star of Masonic initiates, which, expresses most of the 
mysteries of Rosicrucian secret doctrine. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


148 

4 

18 ^ S 

CHARMS AND PHILTRES 

JUSTITIA MYSTERIUM CANES 

We have now to grapple with the most criminal abuse to 
which magical sciences can be put, namely, venomous magic, 
or, rather, sorcery. Let is be here understood that we write 
not to instruct but to warn. If human justice, instead of 
punishing the adepts, had only proscribed the nigromancers 
and poisoning sorcerers, it is certain, as we have previously 
remarked, that its severity would have been well placed, 
and that the most severe penalties could never be excessive 
in the case of such criminals. At the same time it must not 
be supposed that the right of life and death which secretly 
belongs to the magus has always been exercised to satisfy 
some infamous vengeance, or some cupidity more infamous 
still; in the middle ages, as in the ancient world, magical 
associations have frequently struck down or destroyed 
slowly the revealers or profaners of mysteries, and when the 
magic sword has refrained from striking, when the spilling 
of blood was dangerous, then Aqua Toffana, poisoned nose¬ 
gays, the shirt of Nessus, and other deadly instruments, 
still stranger and still less known, were used to carry out 
sooner or later the terrible sentence of the free judges. We 
have said that there is in magic a great and indicible ar¬ 
canum, which is never mentioned among adepts, which the 
profane above all must be prevented from divining; in 
former times, whosoever revealed, or caused the key of this 
supreme secret to be discovered by others through impru¬ 
dent revelations, was condemned immediately to death, and 
was often driven to execute the sentence himself. The 
celebrated prophetic supper of Cazotte, described by La- 
harpe, has not been hitherto understood. Laharpe very 
naturally yielded to the temptation of surprising his readers 
by amplifying the details of his narrative. Everyone 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


149 


present at this supper, Laharpe excepted, was an initiate 
and a divulger, or at least profaner, of the mysteries. 
Cazotte, the most exalted of all in the scale of initiation, 
pronounced their sentence of death in the name of illu- 
minism, and this sentence was variously but rigorously ex¬ 
ecuted, even as several years and several centuries pre¬ 
viously had occurred in the case of similar judgments 
against the Abbe de Villars, Urban Grandier, and many 
others. The revolutionary philosophers perished as did 
Cagliostro deserted in the prisons of the Inquisition, as did 
the mystic band of Catherine Theos, as did the imprudent 
Scroepfer, constrained to suicide in the midst of his magical 
triumphs and the universal infatuation, as did the deserter 
Kotzebue, who was stabbed by Carl Sand, as did also so 
many others whose corpses have been discovered without 
any one being able to learn the cause of their sudden 
and sanguinary death. The strange allocation addressed 
to Cazotte when he himself was condemned by the presi¬ 
dent of the revolutionary tribunal will be readily called to 
mind. The Gordian Knot of the terrible drama of ’93 is 
still concealed in the darkest sanctuary of the secret so¬ 
cieties; to adepts of good faith, who sought to emancipate 
the common people, were opposed adepts of another sect, 
attached to more ancient traditions, who fought by means 
analogous to those of their adversaries: the practice of the 
great arcanum was made impossible by unmasking its 
theory. The crowd understood nothing, but it mistrusted 
everything, and fell lower still in its discouragement; the 
great arcanum became more secret than ever; the adepts, 
checkmated by each other, could exercise their power 
neither to govern others nor to deliver themselves; they con¬ 
demned one another to the death of traitors; they aban¬ 
doned one another to exile, to suicide, to the knife and the 
scaffold. 

I shall be asked possibly whether equally terrible dangers 
threaten at this day the intruders into the occult sanctuary 
and the betrayers of its secret. Why should I answer any- 


150 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


thing to the incredulity of the inquisitive? If I risk a 
violent death for their instruction, certainly they will not 
save me; if they are afraid on their own account, let them 
abstain from imprudent research—this is all I can say to 
them. Let us return to venomous magic. 

In his romance of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas has 
revealed some practices of this ominous science. There is 
no need to traverse the same ground by repeating its 
melancholy theories of crime; describing how plants are 
poisoned; how animals nourished on these plants have their 
flesh infected, and becoming in turn the food of men, cause 
death without leaving any trace of poison; how the walls 
of houses are inoculated; how the air is permeated by fumes 
which require the glass mask of St Croix for the operator; 
let us leave the ancient Canidia her abominable mysteries, 
and refrain from investigating the extent to which the in¬ 
fernal rites of Sagana have carried the art of Locusta. It is 
enough to state that this most infamous class of malefactors 
distilled in conjunction the virus of contagious diseases, the 
venom of reptiles, and the sap of poisonous plants, that 
they extracted from the fungus its deadly and narcotic 
properties, its asphyxiating principles from datura 
stramonium, from the peach and bitter almond that poison 
one drop of which, placed on the tongue or in the ear, de¬ 
stroys, like a flash of lightning, the strongest and best 
constituted living being. The white juice of sea-lettuce 
was boiled with milk in which vipers and asps had been 
drowned. The sap of the manchineel or deadly fruit of 
Java was either brought back with them from their long 
journeys, or imported at great expense; so also was the 
juice of the cassada, and so were similar poisons; they pul¬ 
verised flint, mixed with impure ashes the dried slime of 
reptiles, composed hideous philtres with the virus of mares 
on heat and similar secretions of bitches; they mingled 
human blood with infamous drugs, composing an oil the 
mere odour of which was fatal, therein recalling the tarte 
bourbonnaise of Panurge; they even concealed recipes for 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC T5l 

poisoning in the technical language of alchemy, and the 
secret of the powder of projection, in more than one old 
book which claims to be Hermetic, is in reality that of 
the powder of succession. The Grand Grimoire gives one 
in particular which is very thinly disguised under the title 
of Method for Making Gold; it is an atrocious decoction 
of verdigris, arsenic, and sawdust, which, if properly made, 
should immediately consume a branch that is plunged into 
it and eat swiftly through an iron nail. John Baptista 
Porta cities in his Natural Magic a specimen of Borgia 
poison, but, as may be imagined, he is deceiving the vulgar, 
and does not divulge the truth, which would be too dan¬ 
gerous in such a connection. We may therefore quote his 
recipe to satisfy the curiosity of our readers. 

The toad by itself is not venomous, but it is a sponge 
for poisons, and is the mushroom of the animal kingdom. 
Take, then, a plump toad, says Porta, and place it with 
vipers and asps in a globular bottle; let poisonous fungi, 
fox-gloves, and hemlock be their sole nourishment during a 
period of several days; then enrage them by beating, burn¬ 
ing, and tormenting them in every conceivable manner, 
till they die of rage and hunger; sprinkle their bodies with 
powdered spurge and ground glass; then place them in a 
well-sealed retort, and extract all their moisture by fire. 
Let the glass cool; separate the ash of the dead bodies from 
the incombustible dust, which will remain at the bottom of 
the retort. You will then have two poisons—one liquid, the 
other a powder. The first will be fully as efficacious as the 
terrible Aqua P off ana; the second, in a few days’ time, will 
cause any person, who may have a pinch of it mixed with his 
drink, to become, in the first place, wilted and old, and subse¬ 
quently to die amidst horrible sufferings, or in a state of 
complete collapse. It must be admitted that this recipe has a 
magical physiognomy of the blackest and most revolting 
kind, and sickens one by its recollections of this abominable 
confections of Canida and Medea. The sorcerers of the mid- 
del ages pretended to receive such powders at the Sabbath, 


152 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


and sold them at a high price to the malicious and ignorant. 
The tradition of similar mysteries spread terror in country 
places, and came to act as a spell. The imagination once 
impressed, the nervous system once assailed, and then the 
victim rapidly wasted away, the very dread of his relatives 
and friends insuring his loss. The sorcerer or sorceress was 
almost invariably a species of human toad, swollen with 
long-enduring rancours. They were poor, repulsed by all, 
and consequently full of hatred. The fear which they in¬ 
spired was their consolation and their revenge; poisoned 
themselves by a society of which they had experienced 
nothing but the refuse and the vices, they poisoned in 
their turn all those who were weak enough to fear them, 
and avenged upon beauty and youth their accursed old 
age and their atrocious ugliness. The mere operation of 
these evil works, and the fulfilment of these loathsome 
mysteries, constituted and confirmed what was then called 
a compact with the devil. It is certain that the worker 
must have been given over body and soul to evil, and justly 
deserved the universal and irrevocable reprobation ex¬ 
pressed by the allegory of hell. That human souls could 
descend to such an abyss of crime and madness must as¬ 
suredly astonish and grieve us; but is not such an abyss 
needed as a basis for the exaltation of the most sublime 
virtues? and does not the depth of infernus demonstrate 
by antithesis the infinite height and grandeur of heaven? 

In the North, where the instincts are more repressed and 
vivacious; in Italy, where the passions are more diffusive 
and fiery, charms and the evil eye are still dreaded; the 
jettatura is not to be braved with impunity in Naples, and 
persons who are unfortunately endowed with this power 
are even distinguished by certain exterior signs. In order 
to guard against it, experts affirm that horns must be, 
carried on the person, and the common people, who take 
everything literally, hasten to adorn themselves with small 
horns, not dreaming of the sense of the allegory. These 
attributes of Jupiter Ammon, Bacchus, and Moses are the 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


153 


symbol of moral power or enthusiasm, so that the magicians 
mean to say that, in order to withstand the jettatura, the 
fatal current of instincts must be governed by a great in¬ 
trepidity, a great enthusiasm, or a great thought. In like 
manner, almost all popular superstitions are profane in¬ 
terpretations of some grand maxim or marvellous secret of 
occult wisdom. Did not Pythagoras, in hisi admirable 
symbols, bequeath a perfect philosophy to sages, and a new 
series of vain observances and ridiculous practices to the 
vulgar ? Thus, when he said: ‘ ‘ Do not pick up what falls 
from the table; do not cut down trees on the great high¬ 
way ; kill not the serpent when it falls into your garden , 9 9 
—was he not inculcating the precepts of charity, either 
social or personal, under transparent allegories? When 
he said: “Do not look at yourself by torchlight in a 
mirror,” was he not ingeniously teaching true self-knowl¬ 
edge which is incompatible with factitious lights and the 
prejudgments of systems? It is the same with the other 
precepts of Pythagoras, who, it is well known, was followed 
literally by a swarm of unintelligent disciples, and, in¬ 
deed, amongst our provincial superstitious observances, 
there are many which indubitably belong to the primitive 
misconception of Pythagorean symbols. 

Superstition is derived from a Latin word which signifies 
survival. It is the sign surviving the thought; it is the 
dead body of a religious rite. Superstition is to initiation 
what the notion of the devil is to that of God. This is the 
sense in which the worship of images is forbidden, and in 
this sense also a doctrine most holy in its original concep¬ 
tion may become superstitious and impious when it has lost 
its spirit and its inspiration. Then does religion, ever one, 
like the supreme reason, change its vestures and abandon 
old rites to the cupidity and roguery of priests dispossessed 
and metamorphosed by their wickedness and ignorance into 
jugglers and charlatans. We may include among supersti¬ 
tions those magical emblems and characters, of which the 
meaning is no longer understood, which are engraved by 


154 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 



‘ rt, 

















TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


155 


chance on amulets and talismans. The magical images of 
the ancients were pantacles, i.e., kabbalistic syntheses. 
Thus the wheel of Pythagoras is a pantacle analogous to 
the wheels of Ezekiel; the two figures contain the same 
secrets, and belong to the same philosophy; they constitute 
the key of all pantacles, and we have already discoursed 
concerning them. 

The four beasts, or, rather, the four-headed sphinx of the 
same prophet are identical with an admirable Indian 
symbol which we have reproduced in this work, as having 
reference to the great arcanum. In his Apocalypse, St 
John followed and elaborated Ezekiel; indeed, the mon¬ 
strous figures of his wonderful book, are so many magical 
pantacles, the key of which is easily discoverable by kab- 
balists. On the other hand, Christians, rejecting science 
in their anxiety to extend faith, sought later on to conceal 
the origin of their dogmas, and condemned all kabbalistic 
and magical books to the flames. To destroy originals gives 
a kind of originality to copies, as was doubtless in the mind 
of St Paul when, prompted beyond question by the most 
laudable intention, he accomplished his scientific auto-da-fe 
at Ephesus. In the same way, six centuries later, the true 
believer Omar sacrificed the Library of Alexandria to the 
originality of the Koran, and who knows whether in the 
time to come some future Apostle will not.set fire to our 
literary museums, and confiscate the printing-press in the 
interest of some fresh religious infatuation, some newly 
accredited legend? 

The study of talismans and pantacles is one of the most 
curious branches of magic, and connects with historical 
numismatics. There are Indian, Egyptian, and Greek talis¬ 
mans, kabbalistic medals coming from the ancient and 
modem Jews, Gnostic abraxas, occult tokens in use among 
the members of secret societies, and sometimes called 
counters of the Sabbath; so also there are Templar medals 
and jewels of Freemasonry. In his Treatise on the Won¬ 
ders of Nature, Coglenius describes the talismans of Solo- 


156 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


mon and those of Rabbi Chael. Designs of many others 
that are most ancient will be found in the magical calendars 
of Tycho-Brahe and Duchentau, and should have a place 
in M. Ragon’s archives of initiation, a vast and scholarly 
undertaking, to which we refer our readers. 



TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


157 


19 ^ T 

D 

THE STONE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS— 

ELAGABALUS 

VOCATIO SOL AURUM 

The ancients adored the Sun under the figure of a black 
stone, which they named Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus. 
What did this stone signify, and how came it to be the 
image of the most brilliant of luminaries? The disciples 
of Hermes, before promising their adepts the elixir of long 
life, or the powder of projection, counselled them to seek 
for the philosophical stone. What is this stone, and why a 
stone ? The great initiator of the Christians invites his be¬ 
lievers to build on the stone or rock, if they do not wish their 
structures to be demolished. He terms himself the corner¬ 
stone, and says to the most faithful of his Apostles, i ‘ Thou 
art Peter ( petrus ), and upon this rock ( petram) I will 
build my church. ’ ’ This stone, say the masters in alchemy, 
is the true salt of the philosophers, which is the third in¬ 
gredient in the composition of Azoth. Now, we know al¬ 
ready that Azoth is the name of the great Hermetic and 
true philosophical agent; furthermore, their salt is repre¬ 
sented under the figure of a cubic stone, as may be seen in 
the Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine, or in the allegories of 
Trevisan. Once more, what is this stone actually? It is 
the foundation of absolute philosophy, it is supreme and 
immovable reason. Before even dreaming of the metallic 
work, we must be fixed for ever upon the absolute prin¬ 
ciples of wisdom, we must possess that reason which is 
the touch-stone of truth. Never will a man of prejudices 
become the king of nature and the master of transmuta¬ 
tions. The philosophical stone is hence before all things 
necessary; but how is it to be found? Hermes, informs 







158 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


us in his Emerald Table. We must separate the subtle 
from the fixed with great care and assiduous attention. 
Thus, we must separate our certitudes from our beliefs, and 
sharply distinguish the respective domains of science and 
faith, understanding thoroughly that we do not know things 
which we believe, and that we cease immediately to believe 
anything which we come actually to know, so that the es¬ 
sence of the things of faith is the unknown and the in¬ 
definite, while it is quite the reverse with the things of 
science. It must thence be inferred that science rests on 
reason and experience, whilst the basis of faith is sentiment 
and reason. In other words, the philosophical stone is the 
true certitude which human prudence assures to conscien¬ 
tious researches and modest doubt, whilst religious en¬ 
thusiasm ascribes it exclusively to faith. Now, it belongs 
neither to reason without aspirations nor to aspirations 
without reason; true certitude is the reciprocal acquiescence 
of the reason which knows in the sentiment which believes 
and of the sentiment which believes in the reason which 
knows. The permanent alliance of reason and faith will 
result not from their absolute distinction and separation, 
but from their mutual control and their fraternal concur¬ 
rence. Such is the significance of the two pillars of Solo¬ 
mon’s porch, one named Jakin and the other Bohas, one 
black and the other white. They are distinct and seperate, 
they are even contrary in appearance, but if blind force 
sought to join them by bringing them close to one another, 
the roof of the temple would collapse; separately, their 
power is one; joined, they are two powers which destroy 
one another. For precisely the same reason the spiritual 
power is weakened whensoever it attempts to usurp the 
temporal, while the temporal power becomes the victim of 
its encroachments on the spiritual. Gregory VII. ruined 
the Papacy; the schismatic kings have lost and will lose 
the monarchy. Human equilibrium requires two feet, the 
worlds gravitate by means of two forces, generation needs 
two sexes. Such is the meaning of the arcanum of Solo- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


159 


mon, represented by the two pillars of the temple, Jakin 
and Bohas. 

The sun and moon of the alchemists correspond to the 
same symbol and concur in the perfection and stability of 
the philosophical stone. The sun is the hieroglyphic sign 
of truth, because it is the visible source of light, and the 
rude stone is the symbol of stability. It was for this reason 
that the ancients took the stone Elagabalus as the actual 
type of the sun, and for this also that the mediaeval al¬ 
chemists pointed to the philosophical stone as the first 
means of making philosophical gold, that is to say, of trans¬ 
forming the vital forces represented by the six metals into 
Sol, that is, into truth and light, the first and indispensable 
operation of the great work, leading to the secondary 
adaptations, and discovering, by the analogies of nature, the 
natural and grosser gold to the possessors erf the spiritual 
and living gold, of the true salt, the true mercury, and the 
true sulphur of the philosophers. To find the philosophical 
stone is then to have discovered the absolute, as the masters 
otherwise say. Now, the absolute is that which admits of no 
errors, it is the fixation of the volatile, it is the rule of the 
imagination, it is the very necessity of being, it is the im¬ 
mutable law of reason and truth; the absolute is that which 
is. Now that which is in some sense precedes he who is. 
God himself cannot be in the absence of a reason of being, 
and can exist only in virtue of a supreme and inevitable 
reason. It is this reason which is the absolute; it is this in 
which we must believe if we desire a rational and solid 
foundation for our faith. It may be said in these days that 
God is merely a hypothesis, but the absolute reason is not 
a hypothesis; it is essential to being. 

St Thomas once said: “A thing is not just because God 
wills it, but God wills it because it is just.” Had St 
Thomas logically deduced all the consequences of this beau¬ 
tiful thought, he would have found the philosophical stone, 
and besides being the angel of the school, he would have 
been its reformer. To believe in the reason of God and 


160 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


in the God of reason is to render atheism impossible. 
When Voltaire said: “If God did not exist, it would be 
necessary to invent Him, ” he felt rather than understood 
the reason which is in God. Does God really exist? There 
is no knowing, but we desire it to be so, and hence we be¬ 
lieve it. Faith thus formulated is reasonable faith, for 
it admits the doubt of science, and, as a fact, we believe 
only in things which seem to us probable, though we do not 
know them. To think otherwise is delirium; to speak other¬ 
wise is to talk like the illuminated or fanatical. Now, it 
is not to such persons that the philosophical stone is prom¬ 
ised. The ignoramuses who have turned primitive Chris¬ 
tianity from its path by substituting faith for science, dream 
for experience, the fantastic for the real; inquisitors who, 
during so many ages, have waged a war of extermination 
against magic; have succeeded in enveloping with darkness 
the ancient discoveries of the human mind, so that we are 
now groping for the key to the phenomena of nature. Now, 
all natural phenomena depend upon a single and immutable 
law, represented by the philosophical stone, and especially 
by its cubic form. This law, expressed by the tetrad in the 
Kabbalah, furnished the Hebrews with all the mysteries of 
their divine Tetragram. It may be said therefore that the 
philosophical stone is square in every sense, like the heav¬ 
enly Jerusalem of St John; that one of its sides is in¬ 
scribed with the name and the other with that of 

God; that one of its facets bears the name of Adam, a 
second that of Heva, and the two others those of Azot and 
Inri. At the beginning of the French translation of a 
book by the Sieur de Nuiserqent on the philosophical salt, 
the spirit of the earth is represented standing on a cube 
over which tongues of flame are passing; the phallus is re¬ 
placed by a caduceus; the sun and moon figure on the 
right and left breast; he is bearded, crowned, and holds 
a sceptre in his hand. This is the Azoth of the sages on his 
pedestal of salt and sulphur. The symbolic head of the 
goat of Mendes is occasionally given to this figure, and it is 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


161 


then the Baphomet of the Templars and the Word of the 
Gnostics—bizarre images which became scarecrows for the 
vulgar after affording food for thought to the sages, inno¬ 
cent hieroglyphs of thought and faith which have been a 
pretext for the rage of persecutions. How pitiable are men 
in their ignorance, but how they would despise themselves 
if once they came to know! 


162 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


20 ^ U 

THE UNIVERSAL MEDICINE 

CAPUT RESURRECTIO CIRCULUS 

The majority of our physical complains come from our 
moral diseases, according to the one and universal dogma, 
and by reason of the law of analogies. A great passion to 
which we abandon ourselves always corresponds to a great 
malady in store for us. Mortal sins are so named because 
they, physically and positively, cause death. Alexander the 
Great died of pride; he was naturally temperate, and it was 
through pride that he yielded to the excess which occasioned 
his death. Francis I. died of an adultery. Louis XV. died 
of h.is deer-park. When Marat was assassinated he was 
perishing of rage and envy. He was a monomaniac of 
pride, who believed himself to be the only just man, and 
would have slain everything that was not Marat. Several 
of our contemporaries died of deceived ambition after the 
revolution of February. So soon as any will is irrevocably 
confirmed in a tendency towards the absurd, the man is 
dead, and the rock on which he will break is not distant. 
It is, therefore, true to say that wisdom preserves and pro¬ 
longs life. The great Master told us: “My flesh is meat 
indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My 
flesh and drinketh My blood hath everlasting life.” And 
when the crowd murmured, He added: “Here the flesh 
profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you are 
spirit and life.” So also, when He was about to die, He 
attached the remembrance of His life to the sign of bread, 
and that of His spirit to the symbol of wine, thus institut¬ 
ing the communion of faith, hope, and charity. Now, it is 
in the same sense that the Hermetic masters have said: 
Make gold potable, and you will have the universal medi- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


163 


cine—that is to say, appropriate truth to your needs, let 
it become the source at which you daily drink, and you will 
in yourself have the immortality of the sages. Temper¬ 
ance, tranquillity of soul, simplicity of character, calmness 
and rationality of will, these things not only make man 
happy, but strong and well-seeming. By growth in reason 
and goodness man becomes immortal. We are the authors 
of our own destiny, and God does not save us apart from 
our own concurrence. There is no death for the sage; 
death is a phantom, made horrible by the weakness and 
ignorance of the vulgar. Change is the sign of motion, and 
motion reveals life; if the corpse itself were dead, its de¬ 
composition would be impossible; all its composing mole¬ 
cules are living, and working for their liberation. And you 
dream that the spirit is set free the first so that it may 
cease to live! You believe that thought and love can die 
when the grossest matter is imperishable! If change ought 
to be called death, we die and are reborn daily, because our 
forms change daily. Fear, therefore, to soil or tear our 
garments, but do not fear to lay them by when the hour 
of sleep approaches. 

The embalming and preservation of bodies is a supersti¬ 
tion which is against nature; it is an attempt to create 
death; it is the forcible petrifaction of a substance which is 
needed by life. But, on the other hand, we must not be 
quick to destroy or make away with bodies; there is no 
abruptness in the operations of nature, and we must not 
risk the violent rupture of the bonds of a departing soul. 
Death is never instantaneous; it is, like sleep, gradual. 
So long as the blood has not become absolutely cold, so long 
as the nerves can quiver, a man is not wholly dead, and, if 
none of the vital organs are destroyed, the soul can be re¬ 
called, either by accident or by a strong will. A philosopher 
has declared that he would discredit universal testimony 
rather than believe in the resurrection of a dead person, but 
his speech was rash, for it is on the faith of universal testi¬ 
mony that he believed in the impossibility of resurrection. 


164 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


Supposing such an occurrence were proved, what would 
follow? Must we deny evidence or renounce reason? It 
would be absurd to say so. We should simply infer that 
we were wrong in supposing resurrection to be impossible. 
Ah actu ad posse valet consecutio. 

Let us now make bold to affirm that resurrection is pos¬ 
sible and occurs oftener than might be thought. Many 
persons whose deaths have been legally and scientifically 
attested have been subsequently found in their coffins dead 
indeed, but having evidently come to life and having bitten 
through their clenched hands so as to open the arteries and 
escape from their horrible agonies. A doctor would tell us 
that such persons were in a lethargy, and not dead. But 
what is lethargy? It is the name which we give to an un¬ 
completed death, a death which is falsified by return to life. 
It is easy by words to escape from a difficulty when it is 
impossible to explain facts. The soul is joined to the body 
by means of sensibility, and when sensibility ceases it is a 
sure sign that the soul is departing. The magnetic sleep is 
a lethargy or factitious death which is curable at will. The 
etherisation or torpor produced by chloroform is a real 
lethargy which ends sometimes in absolute death, when the 
soul, ravished by its temporary liberation, makes an effort 
of will to become free altogether, which is possible for those 
who have conquered hell, that is to say, whose moral 
strength is superior to that of astral attraction. Hence 
resurrection is possible only for elementary souls, and it is 
these above all who run the risk of involuntary revival in 
the tomb. Great men and true sages are never buried 
alive. The theory and practice of resurrection will be given 
in our Ritual; to those, meanwhile, who may ask me whether 
I have raised the dead, I w^ould say that if I replied in the 
affirmative they would not believe me. 

It now remains for us to examine whether the abolition 
of pain is possible, and whether it is wholesome to employ 
chloroform or magnetism for surgical operations. We 
think, and science will acknowledge it later on, that by 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


165 


diminishing sensibility we diminish life, and what we sub¬ 
tract from pain under such circumstances turns to the 
profit of death. Pain bears witness to the struggle for life, 
and hence we observe that the dressing of the wound is ex¬ 
cessively painful in the case of persons who are operated 
on under anaesthetics. Now, if chloroform were resorted 
to at each dressing, one of two things would happen—either 
the patient would die, or the pain would return and con¬ 
tinue between the dressings. Nature is not violated with 
impunity. 


166 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


21 ^ X 
DIVINATION 

DENTES FURCA AMENS 

The author of this book has dared many things in his life, 
and never has any fear retained his thought a prisoner. It 
is not at the same time without legitimate dread that he 
approaches the end of the magical doctrine. It is a ques¬ 
tion now of revealing, or rather reveiling, the Great Secret, 
the terrible secret, the secret of life and death, expressed 
in the Bible by those formidable and symbolical words of 
the serpent, who was himself symbolical: I. Nequaquam 
MORIEMINI; II. Sed ERITIS; III. SlCUT Dll; IV. SciENTES 
bonum et malum. One of the privileges which belong to 
the initiate of the Great Arcanum, and that which sums 
them all, is Divination . According to the vulgar compre¬ 
hension of the term, to divine signifies to conjecture what 
is unknown, but its true sense is ineffable to the point of 
sublimity. To divine (divinari) is to exercise divinity. 
The word divinus, in Latin, signifies something far different 
from dimes, which is equivalent to the man-god. Devin , in 
French, contains the four letters of the word Dieu (God), 
plus the letter n, which corresponds in its form to the 
Hebrew aleph and kabbalistically and hieroglyphically 
expresses the Great Arcanum, of which the Tarot symbol is 
the figure of the Juggler. Whosoever understands perfectly 
the aboslute numeral value of ^ multiplied by n final in 
words which signify science, art, or force , who subsequently 
adds the five letters of the word Devin, in such a way 
as to make five go into four, four into three, three into two, 
and two into one, such a person, by translating the re¬ 
sultant number into primitive Hebrew characters, will write 
the occult name of the Great Arcanum, and will possess a 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


167 


word of which the sacred Tetragram itself is only the 
equivalent and the image. 

To be a diviner, according to the force of the term, is 
hence to be divine, and something more mysterious still. 
Now, the two signs of human divinity, or of divine hu¬ 
manity, are prophecies and miracles. To be a prophet is to 
see beforehand the effects which exist in causes, to read 
in the astral light; to work miracles is to act upon the 
universal agent, and subject it to our will. The author of 
this book will be asked whether he is a prophet and 
thaumaturge. Let inquirers recur to all that he wrote be¬ 
fore certain events took place in the world; and as to any¬ 
thing else that he may have said or done, would anyone be¬ 
lieve his mere word if he made any unusual statement? 
Furthermore, one of the essential conditions of divination 
is to be never constrained, never suffer temptation—in other 
words, being put to the test. Never have the masters of 
science yielded to the curiosity of anyone. The sibyls 
burned their books when Tarquin refused to appraise them 
at their proper value; the great Master was silent when 
He was asked for a sign of His divine mission; Agrippa 
perished of want rather than obey those who demanded 
a horoscope. To furnish proofs of science to those who 
suspect the very existence of the science is to initiate the 
unworthy, to profane the gold of the sanctuary, to deserve 
the excommunication of sages, and the fate of betrayers. 

The essence of divination, that is to say, the Great 
Magical Arcanum, is represented by all symbols of the 
science, and is intimately connected with the one and 
primeval doctrine of Hermes. In philosophy, it gives ab¬ 
solute certitude; in religion, the universal secret of faith; 
in physics, the composition, decomposition, recomposition, 
realisation, and adaptation of philosophical Mercury, called 
Azoth by the alchemists; in dynamics it multiplies our 
forces by those of perpetual motion; it is at once mystical, 
metaphysical, and material, with correspondent effects in 
the three worlds; it procures charity in God, truth in 


168 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


science, and gold in riches, for metallic transmutation is at 
once an allegory and reality, as all the adepts of true 
science are perfectly well aware. Yes, gold can really and 
miaterially be made by means of the stone of the sages, 
which is an amalgam of salt, sulphur, and mercury, thrice 
combined in Azoth by a triple sublimation and a triple 
fixation. Yes, the operation is often easy, and may be ac¬ 
complished in a day, an instant; at other times it requires 
months and years. But to succeed in the great work, one 
must be divinus —a diviner, in the kabbalistic sense of the 
term—and it is indispensable that one should have re¬ 
nounced, in respect of personal interest, the advantage of 
wealth, so as to become its dispenser. Raymund Lully 
enriched sovereigns, planted Europe with institutions, and 
remained poor. Nicholas Flamel, who, in spite of his 
legend, is really dead, only attained the great work when 
asceticism had completely detached him from riches. He 
was initiated by a suddenly imparted understanding of the 
book Asch Mezareph, written in Hebrew by the kabbalist 
Abraham, possibly the compiler of the Sepher Jetzirah. 
Now, this understanding was, for Flamel, an intuition 
deserved, or, rather, rendered possible, by the personal 
preparations of the adept. I believe I have spoken 
sufficiently. 

Divination is, therefore, an intuition, and the key of 
this intuition is the universal and magical doctrine of 
analogies. By means of these analogies, the magus in¬ 
terprets visions, as did the patriarch Joseph in Egypt, ac¬ 
cording to Biblical history. The analogies in the reflections 
of the astral light are as exact as the shades of colour in 
the solar spectrum, and can be calculated and explained 
with great exactitude. It is, however, indispensable to 
know the dreamer’s degree of intellectual life, which, in¬ 
deed, he will himself completely reveal by his own dreams 
in a manner that will profoundly astonish himself. 

Somnambulism, presentiments, and second sight are 
simply an accidental or induced disposition to dream in a 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


169 


voluntary or awakened sleep—that is, to perceive the an¬ 
alogous reflections of the astral light, as we shall explain to 
demonstration in our Ritual, when providing the long- 
sought method of regularly producing and directing mag¬ 
netic phenomena. As to divinatory instruments, they are 
simply a means of communication between diviner and 
consulter, serving merely to fix the two wills upon the 
same sign. Vague, complex, shifting figures help to focus 
the reflections of the astral fluid, and it is thus that lucidity 
is procured by coffee-grouts, mists, the white of egg, &c., 
which evoke fatidic forms, existing only in the translucid — 
that is, in the imagination of the operators. Vision in 
water is worked by the dazzlement and tiring of the optic 
nerve, which then resigns its functions to the translucid, 
and produces a brain illusion in which the reflections of the 
astral light are taken for real images. Hence nervous 
persons, of weak sight and lively imagination, are most 
fitted for this species of divination, which, indeed, is most 
successful when performed by children. Let us not here 
misinterpret the function which we attribue to imagination 
in divinatory arts. It is by imagination assuredly that we 
see, and this is the natural aspect of the miracle, but we 
see true things, and in this consists the marvellous aspect 
of the natural work. We appeal to the experience of all 
veritable adepts. The author of this book has tested all 
kinds of divination, and has invariably obtained results in 
proportion to the exactitude of his scientific operations and 
the good faith of his consulters. 

The Tarot, that miraculous work which inspired all the 
sacred books of antiquity, is, by reason of the analogical pre¬ 
cision of its figures and numbers, the most perfect instru¬ 
ment of divination, and can be employed with complete 
confidence. Its oracles are always rigorously true, at least 
in a certain sense, and even when it predicts nothing it 
reveals secret things and gives the most wise counsel to its 
consulters. Alliette, who, in the last century, from a hair¬ 
dresser becaihe a kabbalist, and kabbalistically called him- 


170 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


self Etteilla, reading his name backwards after the manner 
of Hebrew, Alliette, I say, after thirty years of meditation 
over the Tarot, came very near to recovering everything 
that is concealed in this extraordinary work; however, he 
ended only by misplacing the keys, through want of their 
proper understanding, and inverted the order and char¬ 
acter of the figures without, at the same time, entirely 
destroying their analogies, so great are the sympathy and 
correspondence which exist between them. The writings of 
Etteilla, now very rare, are obscure, wearisome, and in 
style barbarous ; they have not all been printed, and some 
manuscripts of this father of modern cartomancers are in 
the hands of a Paris bookseller who has been good enough 
to shew them us. Their most remarkable points are the 
obstinate opinions and incontestible good faith of the 
author, who all his life perceived the grandeur 1 of the 
occult sciences, but was destined to die at the gate of the 
sanctuary without ever penetrating behind the veil. He 
had little esteem for Agrippa, made much of Jean Belot, 
and knew nothing of the philosophy of Paracelsus, but he 
possessed a highly-trained intuition, a volition most per¬ 
severing, though his fancy exceeded his judgment. His 
endowments were insufficient for a magus and more than 
were needed for a skilful and accredited diviner of the 
vulgar order. Hence Etteilla had a fashionable success 
which a more accomplished magician would perhaps have 
been wrong to waive, but would certainly not have claimed. 

When uttering at the end of our Ritual a last word upon 
the Tarot, we shall show the-complete method of reading 
and hence of consulting it, not only on the probable chances 
of destiny, but also, and above all, upon the problems of 
philosophy and religion, concerning which it provides a 
solution which is invariably certain and also admirable in 
its precision, when explained in the hierarchic order of the 
analogy of the three worlds with the three colours and the 
four shades which compose the sacred septenary. All this 
belongs to the positive practice of magic, and can only be 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


171 


summarily indicated and established theoretically in the 
present first part, which is concerned exclusively with the 
doctrine of transcendent magic, and the philosophical and 
religious key of the transcendent sciences, known, or rather 
not known, under the name of occult. 


172 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


SUMMARY AND GENERAL KEY OF THE FOUR 

SECRET SCIENCES 

SIGNA THOT PAN 

Let us now sum up the entire science by its principles. 
Analogy is the final word of science and the first word of 
faith. Harmony consists in equilibrium, and equilibrium 
subsists by the analogy of contraries. Absolute unity is 
the supreme and final reason of things. Now, this reason 
can neither be one person nor three persons; it is a reason, 
and reason eminently. To create equilibrium, we must 
separate and unite—separate by the poles, unite by the 
centre. To reason upon faith is to destroy faith; to create 
mysticism in philosophy is to assail reason. Reason and 
faith, by their nature, mutually exclude one another, and 
they unite by analogy. Analogy is the sole possible media¬ 
tor between the finite and infinite. Dogma is the ever 
ascending hypothesis of a presumable equation. For the 
ignorant, it is the hypothesis which is the absolute affirma¬ 
tion, and the absolute affirmation which is hypothesis. 
Hypotheses are necessary in science, and he who seeks to 
realise them enlarges science without decreasing faith, for 
on the further side of faith is the infinite. We believe 
in what we do not know, but what reason leads us to 
admit. To define and circumscribe the object of faith is, 
therefore, to formulate the unknown. Professions of faith 
are formulations of the ignorance and aspirations of man. 
The theorems of science are monuments of his conquests. 
The man who denies God is not less fanatical than he who 
defines him with pretended infallibility. God is commonly 
defined by the enumeration of all that He is not. Man 
makes God by an analogy from the lesser to the greater, 
whence it results that the conception of God by man is ever 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


173 












174 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


that of an infinite man who makes man a finite God. Man 
can realise that which he believes in the measure of that 
which he knows, and by reason of that which he does not 
know, and he can accomplish all that he wills in the measure 
of that which he believes and by reason of that which he 
knows. The analogy of contraries is the connection of light 
and shade, of height and hollow, of plenum and void. 
Allegory, the mother of all dogmas, is the substitution of 
impressions for seals, of shadows for realities. It is the fable 
of truth and the truth of fable. One does not invent a 
dogma, one veils a truth, and a shade for weak eyes is 
produced. The initiator is not an impostor, he is a 
revealer, that is, following the meaning of the Latin word 
revelare , a man who veils afresh. He is the creator of a 
new shade. 

"V 

Analogy is the key of all secrets of nature and the sole 
fundamental reason of all revelations. This is why religions 
seem to be written in the heavens and in all nature; this is 
just as it should be, for the work of God is the book of God, 
and in what He writes should be discerned the expression of 
His thought, and consequently of His being, since we^con- 
ceive Him only as the supreme thought. Dupuis and Vol- 
ney saw only a plagiarism in this splendid analogy, which 
should have led them to acknowledge the catholicity, that 
is, the universality of the primeval, one, magical, kab- 
balistic, and immutable doctrine of revelation by analogy. 
Analogy yields all the forces of nature to the magus; 
analogy is the quintessence of the philosophical stone, the 
secret of perpetual motion, the quadrature of the circle, the 
temple resting on the two pillars Jakin and Bohas, the 
key of the great arcanum, the root of the tree of life, the 
science of good and evil. To find the exact scale of analogies 
in things appreciable by science is to fix the bases of faith 
and thus become possessed of the rod of miracles. Now, 
there is a principle and rigorous formula, which is the great 
arcanum. Let the wise man seek it not, since he has al- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


175 


ready found it; let the profane seek for ever, and they will 
never find it. 

Metallic transmutation takes place spiritually and ma¬ 
terially by the positive key of analogies. Occult medicine 
is simply the exercise of the will applied to the very source 
of life, to that astral light the existence of which is a fact, 
which has a movement conformed to calculations having 
the great magical arcanum for their ascending and descend¬ 
ing scale. This universal arcanum, the final and eternal 
secret of transcendent initiation, is represented in the Tarot 
by a naked girl, who touches the earth only by one foot, 
has a magnetic rod in each hand, and seems to be running 
in a crown held up by an angel, an eagle, a bull, and a 
lion. Fundamentally, the figure is analogous to the cherub 
of Jekeskiel, of which a representation is here given, and 
to the Indian symbol of Addhanari, which again is anal¬ 
ogous to the ado-nai" of Jekeskiel, who is vulgarly called 
Ezekiel. The comprehension of this figure is the key of all 
the occult sciences. Readers of my book must already un¬ 
derstand it philosophically if they are at all familiar with 
the symbolism of the Kabbalah. It remains for us now to 
realise what is the second and more important operation of 
the great work. It is something undoubtedly to find the 
philosophical stone, but how is at to be ground into the 
powder of projection? What are the uses of the magical 
rod? What is the real power of the divine names in the 
Kabbalah ? The initiates know, and those who are deserv¬ 
ing of initiation will know in turn if they discover the great 

* » 

arcanum by means of the very numerous and precise indica¬ 
tions which we have given them. Why are these simple 
and pure truths for ever and of necessity concealed? Be¬ 
cause the elect of the understanding are always few on 
earth, and are encompassed by the foolish and wicked like 
Daniel in the den of lions. Moreover, analogy instructs us 
in the laws of the hierarchy, and absolute science, being an 
omnipotence, must be the exclusive possession of the most 
worthy. The confusion of the hierarchy is the actual de- 


176 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


struction of societies, for then the blind become leaders of 
the blind, according to the word of the Master. Give back 
initiation to priests and kings and order will come forth 
anew. So, in my appeal to the most worthy, and in expos¬ 
ing myself to all the dangers and anathemas which threaten 
revealers, I believe myself to have done a great and useful 
thing, directing the breath of God living in humanity upon 
the social chaos, and creating priests and kings for the 
world to come. 

A thing is not just because God wills it, but God wills 
it because it is just, said the angel of the schools. It is as 
if he said: The absolute is reason. Reason is self-existent; 
it is because it is, and not because we suppose it; it is or 
nothing is; could you wish anything to exist without reason ? 
Madness itself does not occur without it. Reason is neces¬ 
sity, is law, is the rule of all liberty and the direction of all 
initiative. If God exists, it is by reason. The conception 
of an absolute God outside or independent of reason is the 
idol of black magic and the phantom of the fiend. The 
demon is death masquerading in the cast-off garments of 
life, the spectre of Hirrenkesept throned upon the rubbish 
of ruined civilisations, and concealing a loathsome naked¬ 
ness by the rejected salvage of the incarnations of Vishnu. 


HERE ENDS THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC. 


THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT 

MAGIC 



A 



































INTRODUCTION 


Knowest thou that old queen of the world who is on the 
march always and wearies never ? Every uncurbed passion, 
every selfish pleasure, every licentious energy of humanity, 
and all its tyrannous weakness, go before the sordid mistress 
of our tearful valley, and, scythe in hand, these indefatig¬ 
able labourers reap their eternal harvest. That queen is old 
as time, but her skeleton is concealed in the wreckage of 
women’s beauty, which she abstracts from their youth and 
their love. Her skull is adorned with dead tresses that are 
not her own. Spoliator of crowned heads, she is embel¬ 
lished with the plunder of queens, from the star-begemmed 
hair of Berenice to that, white without age, which the execu¬ 
tioner sheared from the brow of Marie Antoinette. Her 
livid and frozen body is clothed in polluted garments and 
tattered winding-sheets. Her bony hands, covered with 
rings, hold diadems and chains, sceptres and crossbones, 
jewels and ashes. When she goes by, doors open of them¬ 
selves; she passes through walls; she penetrates to the 
cabinets of kings; she surprises the extortioners of the poor 
in their most secret orgies; she sits down at their board, 
pours out their wine, grins at their songs with her gumless 
teeth, takes the place of the lecherous courtesan hidden be¬ 
hind their curtains. She delights in the vicinity of sleeping 
voluptuaries ; she seeks their caresses as if she hoped to 
grow warm in their embrace, but she freezes all those whom 
she touches and herself never kindles. At times, notwith¬ 
standing, one would think her seized with frenzy; she no 
longer stalks slowly; she runs; if her feet are too slow, she 
spurs a pale horse, and charges all breathless through mul- 


181 


182 


TRANSCENDENTAL ]\IAGIC 


titudes. Murder rides with her on a red charger; shaking 
his mane of smoke, fire flies before her with wings of scarlet 
and black; famine and plague follow on diseased and 
emaciated steeds, gleaning the few sheaves which remain to 
complete her harvest. 

After this funereal procession come two little children, 
radiating with smiles and life, the intelligence and love of 
the coming century, the dual genius of a new-born hu¬ 
manity. The shadows of death fold up before them, as does 
night before the morning star; with nimble feet they skim 
the earth, and sow with full hands the hope of another year. 
But death will come no more, impiteous and terrible, to 
mow like dry grass the ripe blades of the new age; it will 
give place to the angel of progress, who will gently liberate 
souls from mortal chains, so that they may ascend to God. 
When men know how to live they will no longer die; they 
will transform like the chrysalis, which becomes a splendid 
butterfly. The terrors of death are daughters of ignorance, 
and death herself is only hideous by reason of the rubbish 
which covers her, and the sombre hues with which her 
images are surrounded. Death, truly, is the birth-pang of 
life. There is a force in nature which dieth not, and this 
force perpetually transforms beings to preserve them. This 
force is the reason of word of nature. In man also there is 
a force analogous to that of nature, and it is the reason or 
word of man. The word of man is the expression of his 
will directed by reason, and it is omnipotent when reason¬ 
able, for then it is analogous to the word of God himself. 
By the word of his reason man becomes the conqueror of 
life, and can triumph over death. The entire life of man is 
either the parturition or miscarriage of his word. Human 
beings who die without having understood or formulated the 
word of reason, die devoid of eternal hope. To withstand 
successfully the phantom of death, we must be identified 
with the realities of life. Does it signify to God if an abor¬ 
tion wither, seeing that life is eternal? Does it signify to 
Nature if unreason perish, since reason which never perishes 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


183 


still holds the keys of life? The first and terrible force 
which destroys abortions eternally was called by the He¬ 
brews Samael; by other easterns, Satan; and by the Latins, 
Lucifer. The Lucifer of the Kabbalah is not an accursed 
and stricken angel; he is the angel who enlightens, who 
regenerates by fire; he is to the angels of peace what the 
comet is to the mild stars of the spring-time constellations. 
The fixed star is beautiful, radiant, and calm; she drinks the 
celestial perfumes and gazes with love upon her sisters; 
clothed in her glittering robe, her forehead crowned with 
diamonds, she smiles as she chants her mornnig and even¬ 
ing canticle; she enjoys an eternal repose which nothing can 
disturb, and solemnly moves forward without departing 
from the rank assigned her among the sentinels of light. 
But the wandering comet, dishevelled and of sanguinary 
aspect, comes hurriedly from the depths of heaven and 
flings herself athwart the path of the peaceful spheres, like 
a chariot of war between the ranks of a procession of ves¬ 
tals ; she dares to face the burning spears of the solar guar¬ 
dians, and, like a bereft spouse who seeks the husband of 
her dreams during widowed nights, she penetrates even 
unto the inmost sanctuary of the god of day; again she 
escapes, exhaling the fires which consume her, and trailing 
a long conflagration behind her; the stars pale at her ap¬ 
proach; constellate flocks, pasturing on flowers of light in 
the vast meadows of the sky, seem to flee before her terrible 
breath. The grand council of spheres assembles, and there 
is universal consternation; at length the loveliest of the 
fixed stars is commissioned to speak in the name of all the 
firmament and offer peace to the headlong vagabond. 

“My sister,” she thus commences, “why dost thou disturb 
the harmony of the spheres? What evil have we wrought 
thee? And why, instead of wandering wilfully, dost thou 
not fix thy place like us in the court of the sun ? Why dost 
thou not chant with us the evening hymn, clothed like our¬ 
selves in a white garment, fastened at the breast with a 
diamond clasp? Why float thy tresses, adrip with fiery 


184 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


sweat, through the mists of the night? Ah, wouldst thou 
but take thy place among the daughters of heaven, how 
much more beautiful wouldst thou be! Thy face would 
bum no longer with the toil of thine incredible flights; 
thine eyes would be pure, thy smiling countenance white 
and red like that of thy happy sisters ; all the stars would 
know thee, and, far from fearing thy flight, would rejoice at 
thine approach; for then thou wouldst be made one with 
us by the indestructible bonds of universal harmony, and 
thy peaceful existence would be one voice more in the 
canticle of infinite love.” 

And the comet replies to the fixed star: * ‘ Believe not, 0 
my sister, that I am permitted to wander at will and vex 
the harmony of the spheres! God hath appointed my path, 
even as thine, and if it appear to thee uncertain and ram¬ 
bling, it is because thy beams cannot penetrate far enough 
to take in the circumference of the ellipse which has been 
given me for my course. My fiery hair is God’s beacon; I 
am the messenger of the suns, and I immerse myself con¬ 
tinually in their burning heat, that I may dispense it to 
young worlds on my journey which have not yet sufficient 
warmth, and to ancient stars which have grown cold in their 
solitude. If I weary in my long travellings, if my beauty 
be less mild than thine own, and if my garments are less 
unspotted, yet am I a noble daughter of heaven, even as 
thou art. Leave me the secret of my terrible destiny, leave 
me the dread which surrounds me, curse me even if thou 
canst not comprehend; I shall none the less accomplish my 
work, and continue any career under the impulse of the 
breath of God! Happy are the stars which rest, which shine 
like youthful queens in the peaceful society of the uni¬ 
verse ! I am the proscribed, the eternal wanderer, who has 
infinity for domain. They accuse me of setting fire to the 
planets, the heat of which I renew; they accuse! me of 
terrifying the stars which I enlighten; they chide me with 
breaking in upon universal harmony, because I do not 
revolve about their particular centres, because I join them 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


185 


one with another, directing my gaze towards the sole centre 
of all the suns. Be reassured, therefore, 0 beauteous fixed 
star! I shall not impoverish thy peaceful light; rather I 
shall expend in thy service my own life and heat. I shall 
disappear from heaven when I shall have consumed myself, 
and my doom will have been glorious enough! Know that 
various fires bum in the temple of God, and do all give 
Him glory; ye are the light of golden candelabra; I am 
the flame of sacrifice. Let us each fulfil our destinies.’’ 

Having uttered these words, the comet tosses back her 
burning hair, uplifts her fiery shield, and plunges into 
infinite space, seeming to be lost for ever. 

Thus Satan appeared and disappeared in the allegorical 
narratives of the Bible. “Now there was a day,” says the 
book of Job, “when the sons of God came to present them¬ 
selves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. 
And the Lord said unto Satan, ‘Whence comest thou?’ 
Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, ‘From going to 
and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down 
in it.’ ” 

A Gnostic gospel, discovered in the east by a learned 
traveller of our acquaintance, explains the genesis of light 
to the profit of Lucifer, as follows:—The self-conscious 
truth is the living thought. Truth is thought as it is in 
itself, and formulated thought is speech. When eternal 
thought desired a form, it said: ‘ ‘ Let there be light. ’ ’ Now, 
this thought which speaks is the Word, and the Word said: 
“Let there be light,” because the Word itself is the light of 
minds. The uncreated light, which is the divine Word, 
shines because it desires to be seen; when it says: “Let 
there be light! ” it ordains that eyes shall open; it creates 
intelligences. When God said: “Let there be light!” In¬ 
telligence was made, and the light appeared. Now the In¬ 
telligence which God diffused by the breath of His mouth, 
like a star given off from the sun, took the form of a splen¬ 
did angel, who was saluted by heaven under the name of 
Lucifer. Intelligence awakened, and comprehended its na- 


186 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


ture completely by the understanding of that utterance of 
the Divine Word: “Let there be light!” It felt itself to 
be free because God had called it into being, and, raising up 
its head, with both wings extended, it replied: “ I will not 
be slavery.” “Then shalt thou be suffering,” said the 
Uncreated Voice. “I will be liberty,” replied the light. 
“Pride will seduce thee,” said the Supreme Voice, “and 
thou wilt bring forth death.” “I needs must strive with 
death to conquer life,” again responded the created light. 
Thereupon God loosened from his bosom the shining cord 
which restrained the superb angel, and beholding him 
plunge through the night, which he furrowed with glory. 
He loved the offspring of His thought, and said with an 
ineffable smile: “How beautiful was the light!” 

God has not created suffering; intelligence has accepted 
it to be free. And suffering has been the condition imposed 
upon freedom of being by Him who alone cannot err, be¬ 
cause He is infinite. For the essence of intelligence is 
judgment, and the essence of judgment is liberty. The 
eye does not really possess light except by the faculty of 
closing or opening. Were it forced to be always open, it 
would be the slave and victim of the light, and would cease 
to see in order to escape the torment. Thus, created Intel-, 
ligence is not happy in affirming God, except by its liberty 
to deny Him. Now, the Intelligence which denies, invari¬ 
ably affirms something, since it is asserting its liberty. It 
is for this reason that blasphemy glorifies God, and that hell 
was indispensable to the happiness of heaven. Were the 
light unrepelled by shadow, there would be no visible forms. 
If the first angel had not encountered the depths of dark¬ 
ness, the child-birth of God would have been incomplete, 
and there could have been no separation between the 
created and essential light. Never would Intelligence have 
known the goodness of God if it had never lost Him. Never 
would God’s infinite love have shone forth in the joys of 
His mercy had the prodigal Son of Heaven remained in the 
house of His Father. When all was light, there was light 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


187 


nowhere; it filled the breast of God, who was labouring to 
bring forth. And when He said: “Let there be light!” 
He permitted the darkness to repel the light, and the 
universe issued from chaos. The negation of the angel 
who, at birth, refused slavery, constituted the equilibrium 
of the world, and the motion of the spheres commenced. 
The infinite distances admired this love of liberty, which 
was vast enough to fill the void of eternal light, and strong 
enough to bear the hatred of God. But God could hate not 
the noblest of His children, and He proved him by His 
wrath only to confirm him in His power. So also the Word 
of God Himself, as if jealous of Lucifer, willed to come 
down from heaven and pass triumphantly through the 
shadows of hell. He willed to be proscribed and con¬ 
demned ; He pre-mediated the terrible hour when He should 
cry, in the extreme of His agony: ‘ ‘ My God, My God, why 
hast Thou forsaken Me?” As the star, of the morning 
goes before the sun, the rebellion of Lucifer announced to 
new-born nature the coming incarnation of God. Possibly 
Lucifer, in his fall through night, carried with him a rain 
of suns and stars by the attraction of his glory. Possibly 
our sun is a demon among the stars, as Lucifer is a star 
among the angels. Doubtless it is for this reason that it 
lights so calmly the horrible angiush of humanity and the 
long agony of earth—because it is free in its solitude, and 
possesses its light. 

Such were the tendencies of the heresiarchs in the early 
centuries. Some, like the Ophites, adored the demon under 
the figure of the serpent; others, like the Cainites, justified 
the rebellion of the first angel like that of the first mur¬ 
derer. All these errors, all these shadows, all these mon¬ 
strous idols of anarchy which India opposes in its symbols 
to the magical Trimourti, have found priests and wor¬ 
shippers in Christianity. The demon is nowhere mentioned 
in Genesis; an allegorical serpent deceives our first parents. 
Here is the common translation of the sacred text: 11 Now, 
the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field 


188 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


which the Lord God had made.” But this is what Moses 
says: 

0vita n\T nsry m&yn ;vn any .vn prum 

Wha-Nahash haiah haroum mi-chol haiaht ha-shadeh asher 

hashah Jhoah HHohim. 

This signifies, according to the version of Fabre d ’Olivet: 
“Now, original attraction (cupidity) was the entrianing 
passion of all elementary life (the interior active power) 
of nature, the work of Jhoah, the Being of beings.” But 
herein Fabre d’Olivet is beside the true interpretation, be¬ 
cause he was unacquainted with the grand keys of the Kab¬ 
balah. The word Nahasch, explained by the symbolical let¬ 
ters of the Tarot rigorously signifies: 

14 j Nun .—The power which produces combinations. 

5 pj He .—The recipient and passive producer of forms. 

21 ^ Schin .—The natural and central fire equilibrated by 
double polarization. 

Thus, the word employed by Moses, read kabbalistically, 
gives the description and definition of that magical uni- 
versalagent, represented in all theogonies by the serpent; 
to this agent the Hebrews applied the name of Od when 
it manifested its active force, of Ob when it exhibited its 
passive force, and of Aour when it wholly revealed itself in 
its equilibrated power, producer of light in heaven and gold 
among metals. It is therefore that old serpent which en¬ 
circles the world, and places his devouring head beneath 
the foot of a Virgin, the type of initiation—that virgin who 
presents a little new-born child to the adoration of three 
magi, and receives from them, in exchange for this favour, 
gold, myrrh, and frankincense. So does doctrine serve in 
all hieratic religions to veil the secret of those forces of 
nature which the initiate has at his disposal; religious 
formulae are the summaries of those words full of mystery 
and power which make the gods descend from heaven and 
yield themselves to the will of men. Judea borrowed its 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


189 


secrets from Egypt; there Greece sent her hierophants, and 
later her theosophists, to the school of the great prophets; 
the Rome of the Caesars, mined by the initiation of the 
catacombs, collapsed one day into the Church, and a sym¬ 
bolism was reconstructed with the remnants of all the 
worships which had been absorbed by the queen of the 
world. According to the Gospel narrative, the inscription 
which set forth the spiritual royalty of Christ was written 
in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin; it was the expression 
of the universal synthesis. Hellenism, in fact, that grand 
and beauteous religion of form, announced the coming of the 
Saviour no less than the prophets of Judaism; the fable of 
Psyche was an ultra-Christian abstraction, and the cultus 
of the Pantheons, by rehabilitating Socrates, prepared the 
altars for that unity of God, of which Israel had been the 
mysterious preserver. But the synagogue denied its Mes¬ 
siah, and the Hebrew letters were effaced, at least in the 
blinded eyes of the Jews. The Roman persecutors dis¬ 
honoured Hellenism, and it could not be restored by the 
false moderation of the philosopher Julian, sumamed per¬ 
haps unjustly the Apostate, since his Christianity was never 
sincere. The ignorance of the middle ages followed, oppos¬ 
ing saints and virgins to gods, goddesses, and nymphs; the 
deep sense of the Hellenic mysteries became less understood 
than ever; Greece herself did not only lose the traditions of 
her ancient cultus, but separated from the Latin Church; 
and thus, for Latin eyes, the Greek letters were blotted out, 
as the Latin letters disappeared for Greek eyes. So the in¬ 
scription on the Cross of the Saviour vanished entirely, and 
nothing except mysterious initials remained. But when 
science and philosophy, reconcilated with faith, shall unite 
all the various symbols, then shall all the magnificences of 
the antique worships again blossom in the memory of men, 
proclaiming the progress of the human mind in the intui¬ 
tion of the light of God. But of all forms of progress the 
greatest will be that which, restoring the keys of nature 
to the hands of science, shall enchain for ever the hideous 


190 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


spectre of Satan, and, explaining all exceptional phenomena 
of nature, shall destroy the empire of superstition and 
idiotic credulity. To the accomplishment of this work we 
have consecrated our life, and do still devote it, to the most 
toilsome and difficult researches. We would emancipate 
altars by overthrowing idols; we desire the man of intelli¬ 
gence to become once more the priest and king of nature, 
and we would preserve by explanation all images of the 
universal sanctuary. 

The prophets spoke in parables and images, because ab¬ 
stract language was wanting to them, and because prophetic 
perception, being the sentiment of harmony or of universal 
analogies, translates naturally by images. Taken literally 
by the vulgar, these images become idols or impenetrable 
mysteries. The sum and succession of these images and 
mysteries constitute what is called symbolism. Symbolism, 
therefore, comes from God, though it may be formulated 
by men. Revelation has accompanied humanity in all ages, 
has transfigured with human genius, but has ever expressed 
the same truth. True religion is one; its dogmas are simple, 
and within the reach of all. At the same time, the multi¬ 
plicity of symbols has been a book of poesy indispensable to 
the education of human genius. The harmony of outward 
beauties and the poetry of form had to be revealed by God 
to the infancy of man; but soon Venus had Psyche for her 
rival, and Psyche enchanted Love. Thus the cultus of the 
form perforce yielded to those ambitious dreams which 
already adorned the eloquent wisdom of Plato. The advent 
of Christ was prepared, and for this reason was expected; 
it came because the world awaited it, and to become popular 
philosophy transformed into belief. Emancipated by this 
belief itself, the human mind speedily protested against the 
school which sought to materialise its signs, and the work 
of Roman Catholicism was solely the unconscious prepara¬ 
tion for the emancipation of consciences and the establish¬ 
ment of the bases of universal association. All these things 
were the regular and normal development of divine life in 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


191 


humanity; for God is the great soul of all souls, the im¬ 
movable centre about which gravitate all intelligence like 
a cloud of stars. 

Human intelligence has had its morning; its noon will 
come, and the decline follow, but God will ever be the same. 
It seems, however, to the dwellers on the earth that the sun 
rises youthful and timid in the morning, shines with all its 
power at mid-day, and goes wearied to rest in the evening. 
Nevertheless, it is earth which revolves while the sun is 
motionless. Having faith, therefore, in human progress, 
and in the stability of God, the free man respects religion in 
its past forms, and no more blasphemes Jupiter than 
Jehovah; he still salutes lovingly the radiant image of 
the Pythian Apollo, and discovers its fraternal resemblance 
to the glorified countenance of the risen Redeemer. He 
believes in the great mission of the Catholic hierarchy, and 
finds satisfaction in observing the popes of the middle ages 
who opposed religion as a check upon the absolute power of 
kings; but he protests with the revolutionary centuries 
against the servitude of conscience which would enchain the 
pontifical keys; he is more protestant than Luther, since he 
does not even believe in the infallibility of the Augsbourg 
Confession, and more catholic than the Pope, for he has no 
fear that religious unity will be broken by the ill-will of 
the courts. He trusts in God rather than Roman policy for 
the salvation of the unity idea; he respects the old age of 
the Church, but he has no fear that she will die; he knows 
that her apparent death will be a transfiguration and a 
glorious assumption. 

The author of this book makes a fresh appeal to the 
eastern magi to come forward and recognise once again that 
divine Master whose cradle they saluted, the great initiator 
of all the ages. All His enemies have fallen; all those who 
condemned Him are dead; those who persecuted Him have 
passed into sleep for ever; He is for ever alive. The en¬ 
vious have combined against Him, agreeing on a single 
point; the sectaries have united to destroy Him; they have 


192 


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crowned themselves kings and proscribed Him; they have 
become hypocrites and accused Him; they have constituted 
themselves judges and pronounced His sentence of death; 
they have turned headsmen and executed Him; they have 
forced Him to drink hemlock, they have crucified Him, they 
have stoned Him, they have burned Him and cast His ashes 
to the wind; then they have turned scarlet with terror, for 
He still stood erect before them, impeaching them by His 
wounds and overwhelming them by the brightness of His 
scars. They believed that they had slain Him in His cradle 
at Bethlehem, but He is alive in Egypt! They carry Him 
to the summit of the mountain to cast Him down; the mob 
of His murderers encircles Him, and already triumphs in 
His certain destruction; a cry is heard; is not that He who 
is shattered on the rocks of the abyss? They whiten and 
look at one another; but He, calm and smiling with pity, 
passes through the midst of them and disappears. Behold 
another mountain which they have just dyed with His 
blood! Behold a cross, a sepulchre, and soldiers guarding 
His tomb! Madmen! The tomb is empty, and He whom 
they regard as dead is walking peaceably between two 
travellers, on the road to Emmaiis. Where is He ? Whither 
does He go? Warn the masters of the world! Tell the 
Caesars that their power is threatened! By whom ? By a 
pauper who has no stone on which to lay His head, by a 
man of the people condemned to the death of slaves. What 
insult or what madness! It matters not. The Caesars mar¬ 
shal all their power; sanguinary edicts proscribe the fugi¬ 
tive, everywhere scaffolds rise up, circuses open arrayed 
with lions and gladiators, pyres are lighted, torrents of 
blood flow, and the Caesars, believing themselves victorious, 
dare add another name to those they rehearse on their 
trophies; then they die, and their own apotheosis dishonours 
the gods whom they defended. The hatred of the world 
confounds Jupiter and Nero in a common contempt. 
Temples transformed into tombs are cast down over the 
proscribed ashes, and above the debris of idols, above the 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


193 


ruins of empires, He only, He whom the Caesars proscribed, 
whom so many satellites pursued, whom so many execu¬ 
tioners tortured, He only lives, alone reigns, alone triumphs! 

Notwithstanding, His own disciples speedily misuse His 
name; pride enters the sanctuary; those who should pro¬ 
claim His resurrection seek to immortalise His death, that 
they may feed, like the ravens, on His ever-renewing flesh. 
In place of imitating Him by His sacrifice and shedding 
their blood for their children in the faith, they claim Him 
in the Vatican as upon another Caucasus, and become the 
vultures of this divine Prometheus. But what signifies their 
evil dream ? They can only imprison His image; He Him¬ 
self is free and erect, proceeding from exile to exile and 
from conquest to conquest; it is possible to bind a man, but 
not to make captive the Word of God; speech is free, and 
nothing can repress it; this living speech is the condemna¬ 
tion of the wicked, and hence they seek to destroy it, but it 
is they only who die, and the word of truth remains to 
judge their memory! Orpheus may have been rent by 
bacchantes, Socrates may have quaffed the poisoned cup, 
Jesus and His apostles have perished in the utmost tor¬ 
tures, John Hus, Jerome of Prague, and innumerable others, 
have been burned; St Bartholomew and the massacres of 
September may have had in turn their victims; cossacks, 
knouts, and Siberian deserts are still at the disposal of the 
Russian Emperor, but the spirit of Orpheus, of Socrates, 
of Jesus, and of all martyrs will live for ever in the midst 
of their dead persecutors, will stand erect amidst failing in¬ 
stitutions and collapsing empires. It is this divine spirit, 
the spirit of the only Son of God, which St John represents 
in his apocalypse, standing between golden candlesticks, 
because He is the centre of all lights; having seven stars in 
His hand, like the seed of a new heaven; and sending down 
His speech upon the earth under the symbol of a two-edged 
sword. When the wise in their discouragement sleep 
through the night of doubt, the spirit of Christ is erect 
and vigilant. When the nations, weary of the labour which 


194 


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emancipates them, lie down and dream over their chains, 
the spirit of Christ is erect and protesting. When the 
blind partisans of sterilised religions cast themselves in the 
dust of old temples, the spirit of Christ is erect and pray¬ 
ing. When the strong become weak, when virtues are cor¬ 
rupted, when all things bend and sink down in search of a 
shameful pasture, the spirit of Christ is erect, gazing up to 
heaven, and awaiting the hour of His Father. 

Christ signifies priest and king by excellence. The Christ 
initiator of modern times came to form new priests and new 
kings by science, and, above all, by charity. The ancient 
magi were priests and kings, and the Saviour’s advent was 
proclaimed to them by a star. This star was the magical 
pentagram, having a sacred letter at each point. It is the 
symbol of the intelligence which rules by unity of force 
over the four elementary potencies; it is the pentagram of 
the magi, the blazing star of the children of Hiram, the 
prototype of equilibrated light; to each of its points a ray 
of light ascends, and from each a ray goes forth; it repre¬ 
sents the grand and supreme athanor of nature, which is 
the body of man. The magnetic influence issues in two 
beams from the head, from either hand, and from either 
foot. The positive ray is balanced by the negative. The 
head corresponds with the two feet, each hand with a hand 
and foot, each of the two feet with the head and one hand. 
This ruling sign of equilibrated light represents the spirit 
of order and harmony; it is the sign of the omnipotence of 
the magus, and hence, when broken or incorrectly drawn, it 
represents astral intoxication, abnormal and ill-regulated 
projections of the astral light, and, therefore, bewitchments, 
perversity, madness, and it is what the magi term the 
signature of Lucifer. There is another signature which 
also symbolises the mysteries of light, namely, the sign of 
Solomon, whose talismans bear on one side the impression 
of his seal which we have given in our Doctrine, and on 
the other the following signature (p. 189), which is the 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


195 


hieroglyphic theory of the composition of magnets, and 
represents the circulatory law of the lightning. 

Rebellious spirits are enchained by the exhibition of the 
blazing five-pointed star or the seal of Solomon, because 
each gives them proof of their folly and threatens them with 
a sovereign power capable of tormenting them by their 
recall to order. Nothing tortures the wicked so much as 
goodness. Nothing is more odious to madness than reason. 
But if an ignorant operator should make use of these signs 
without knowing them, he is a blind man who discourses of 
light to the blind, an ass who would teach children to read. 

4 ‘If the blind lead the blind,” said the great and divine 
Hierophant, “both fall into the pit.” 

And now a final word to sum this entire introduction. 



If you be blind like Samson when you cast down the pillars 
of the temple, its ruins will crush you. To command nature 
we must be above nature by resistance of her attractions. 
If your mind be perfectly free from all prejudice, super¬ 
stition, and incredulity, you will command spirits. If you 
do not obey blind forces, they will obey you. If you be wise 





196 


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like Solomon, you will perform the works of Solomon; if 
you be holy like Christ, you will accomplish the works of 
Christ. To direct the currents of the inconstant light, we 
\ must be established in the constant light. To command the 
elements, we must have overcome their hurricanes, their 
lightnings, their abysses, their tempests. In order to dare 
we must know ; in order to will, we must dare ; we must 
will to possess empire, and to reign we must be silent. 



THE RITUAL 

OF 

TRANSCENDENT MAGIC 


CHAPTER I 

PREPARATIONS 

Every intention which does not assert itself by deeds is a 
vain intention, and the speech which expresses it is idle 
speech. It is action which proves life and establishes will. 
Hence it is said in the sacred and symbolical books that 
men will be judged, not according to their thoughts and 
their ideas, but according to their works. We must act in 
order to be. 

We have, therefore, to treat in this place of the grand 
and terrific question of magical works; we are concerned no 
longer with theories and abstractions; we approach realities, 
and we are about to place the rod of miracles in the hands 
of the adept, saying to him at the same time: “Be not 
satisfied with what we tell you; act for yourself. * ’ We 
have to deal here with works of relative omnipotence, with 
the means of seizing upon the greatest secrets of nature and 
compelling them into the service of an enlightened and 
inflexible will. 

Most known magical rituals are either mystifications or 
enigmas, and we are about to rend for the first time, after 


197 



198 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


so many centuries, the veil of the occult sanctuary. To 
reveal the holiness of mysteries is to provide a remedy for 
their profanation. Such is the thought which sustains our 
courage and enables us to face all the perils of this enter¬ 
prise, possibly the most intrepid which it has been permitted 
the human mind to conceive and carry out. 

Magical operations are the exercise of a natural power, 
but one superior to the ordinary forces of nature. They 
are the result of a science and a practice which exalt human 
will beyond its normal limits. The supernatural is only the 
natural in an extraordinary grade, or it is the exalted 
natural; a miracle is a phenomenon which strikes the multi¬ 
tude because it is unexpected; the astonishing is that which 
astonishes; miracles are effects which surprise those who are 
ignorant of their causes, or assign them causes which are 
not in proportion to such effects. Miracles exist only for 
the ignorant, but, as there is scarcely any absolute science 
among men, the supernatural can still obtain, and does so 
indeed for the whole world. Let us set out by saying that 
we believe in all miracles because we are convinced and 
certain, even from our own experience, of their entire possi¬ 
bility. There are some which we do not explain, though 
we regard them as no less explicable. From the greater to 
the lesser, from the lesser to the greater, the consequences 
are identically related and the proportions progressively 
rigorous. But in order to work miracles we must be out¬ 
side the ordinary conditions of humanity; we must either 
be abstracted by wisdom or exalted by madness, either 
superior to all passions or beyond them through ecstasy or 
frenzy. Such is the first and most indispensable prepara¬ 
tion of the operator. Hence, by a providential or fatal law, 
the magician can only exercise omnipotence in inverse pro¬ 
portion to his material interest; the alchemist makes so 
much the more gold as he is the more resigned to priva¬ 
tions, and the more esteems that poverty which protects 
the secrets of the magnum opus. Only the adept whose 
heart is passionless will dispose of the love and hate of 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


199 


those whom he would make instruments of his science; 
the myth of Genesis is eternally true, and God permits the 
tree of science to be approached only by those men who are 
sufficiently strong and self-denying not to covet its fruits. 
Ye, therefore, who seek in science a means to satisfy your 
passions, pause in this fatal way; you will find nothing but 
madness or death. This is the meaning of the vulgar 
tradition that the devil ends sooner or later by strangling, 
sorcerers. The magus must hence be impassible, sober and 
chaste, disinterested, impenetrable, and inaccessible to any 
kind of prejudice or terror. He must be without bodily 
defects, and proof against all contradictions and all diffi¬ 
culties. The first and most important of magical opera¬ 
tions is the attainment of this rare pre-eminence. 

We have said that impassioned ecstasy may produce the 
same results as absolute superiority, and this is true as to 
the issue, but not as to the direction of magical operations. 
Passion forcibly projects the astral light and impresses un¬ 
foreseen movements on the universal agent, but it cannot 
check with the facility that it impels, and its destiny then 
resembles Hippolytus dragged by his own horses, or Phalaris 
himself victimised by the instrument of torture which he 
had invented for others. Human volition realised by action 
is like a cannon-ball, and recedes before no obstacle. It 
either passes through it or is buried in it, but if it advance 
with patience and perseverance, it is never lost; it is like 
the wave which returns incessantly and wears away iron in 
the end. 

Man can be modified by habit, which becomes, according 
to the proverb, his second nature. By means of persevering 
and graduated athletics, the powers and activity of the body 
can be developed to an astonishing extent. It is the same 
with the powers of the soul. Would you reign over your¬ 
selves and others ? Learn how to will. How can one 
learn to will? This is the first arcanum of magical initia¬ 
tion, and it was to make it understood fundamentally that 
the ancient depositaries of priestly art surrounded the 


200 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


approaches of the sanctuary with so many terrors and 
illusions. They did not believe in a will until it had pro¬ 
duced its proofs, and they were right. Power is justified by 
victories. Indolence and forgetfulness are enemies of will, 
and for this reason all religions have multiplied their 
observances and made their worship minute and difficult. 
The more we restrain ourselves for an idea, the greater is 
the strength we acquire within the scope of that idea. Are 
not mothers more partial to the children who have caused 
them most suffering and cost them most anxieties? So 
does the power of religions reside exclusively in the inflexible 
will of those who practise them. So long as there is one 
faithful person to believe in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, 
there will be a priest to celebrate it for him; and so long 
as there is a priest who daily recites his breviary, there will 
be a pope in the world. Observances, apparently most in¬ 
significant and most foreign in themselves to the proposed 
end, lead, notwithstanding, to that end by education and 
exercise of will. If a peasant rose up every morning at two 
or three o’clock, and went daily a long distance from home 
to gather a sprig of the same herb before the rising of the 
sun, he would be able to perform a great number of prod¬ 
igies by merely carrying this herb upon his person, for it 
would be the sign of his will, and would become by his will 
itself all that he required it to become in the interest of his 
desires. In order to do a thing we must believe in the 
possibility of our doing, and this faith must forthwith be 
translated into acts. When a child says: “I cannot,” his 
mother answers: ‘ ‘ Try . 9 9 Faith does not even try; it begins 
with the certitude of completing, and it proceeds calmly, as 
if omnipotence were at its disposal and eternity before it. 
What seek you, therefore, from the science of the magi? 
Dare to formulate your desire, then set to work at once, 
and do not cease acting after the same manner and for the 
same end; what you will shall come to pass, and for you 
and by you it has indeed already begun. Sixtus V. said, 
while watching his'flocks: “I desire to be pope.” You are 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


201 


a beggar, and you desire to make gold; set to work and 
never leave off. I promise you, in the name of science, all 
the treasures of Flamel and Raymond Lully. 4 ‘What is 
the first thing to do?” Believe in your power, then act. 
“But how act?” Rise daily at the same hour, and that 
early; bathe at a spring before daybreak’ and in all seasons; 
never wear dirty clothes, rather wash them yourself if need¬ 
ful; accustom yourself to voluntary privations, that you 
may be better able to bear those which come without seek¬ 
ing; then silence every desire which is foreign to the ful¬ 
filment of the great work. 

“What! By bathing daily in a spring, I shall make 
gold?” You will work in order to make it. “It is a 
mockery!” No, it is an arcanum. “How can I make use 
of an arcanum which I fail to understand?” Believe and 
act; you will understand later. 

One day a person said to me: “I would that I could be 
a fervent Catholic, but I am a Yoltairean. What would I 
not give to have faith!” I replied: “Say, ‘I would’ no 
longer; say ‘I will,’ and I promise you that you will be- 
lieve. You tell me you are a Yoltairean, and of all the 
various presentations of faith that of the Jesuits is most 
repugnant to you, but at the same time seems the most 
powerful and desirable. Perform the exercises of St 
Ignatius again and again, without allowing yourself to be 
discouraged, and you will attain the faith of a Jesuit. The 
result is infallible, and should you then have the simplicity 
to ascribe it to a miracle, you deceive yourself now in think¬ 
ing that you are a Yoltairean. ” 

An idle man will never become a magician. Magic is an- 
exercise of all hours and all moments. The operator of 
great works must be absolute master of himself; he must 
know how to conquer the allurements of pleasure, appetite, 
and sleep; he must be insensible to success and to indignity. 
His life must be that of a will directed by one thought, and 
served by entire nature, which he will have made subject to 
mind in his own organs, and by sympathy in all the uni- 


202 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


versal forces which are their correspondents. All faculties 
and all senses should share in the work; nothing in the 
priest of Hermes has the right to remain idle; intelligence 
must be formulated by signs and summed by characters or 
pantacles; will must be determined by words, and must 
fulfil words by deeds; the magical idea must be rendered 
into light for the eyes, harmony for the ears, perfumes for 
the sense of smell, savours for the palate, objects for the 
touch; the operator, in a word, must realise in his whole 
life what he wishes to realise in the world without him; he 
must become a magnet to attract the desired thing; and 
when he shall be sufficiently magnetic, he must be con¬ 
vinced that the thing will come of itself, and without think¬ 
ing of it. 

It is important for the magus to be acquainted with the 
secrets of science, but he may know them by intuition, and 
without formal learning. Solitaries, living in the habitual 
contemplation of nature, frequently divine her harmonies, 
and are more instructed in their simple good sense than 
doctors, whose natural discernment is falsified by the 
sophistries of the schools. True practical magicians are 
almost invariably found in the country, and are frequently 
uninstructed persons and simple shepherds. Furthermore, 
certain physical organisations are better adapted than others 
for the revelations of the occult world; there are sensitive 
and sympathetic natures, with whom intuition in the astral 
light is, so to speak, inborn; certain afflictions and certain 
complaints can modify the nervous system, and, indepen¬ 
dently of the concurrence of the will’ may convert it into a 
divinatory apparatus of less or more perfection; but these 
phenomena are exceptional, and generally magical power 
should, and can, be acquired by perseverance and labour. 
There are also some substances which produce ecstasy, and 
dispose towards the magnetic sleep; there are some which 
place at the service of imagination all the most lively and 
highly coloured reflections of the elementary light; but the 
use of such substances is dangerous, for they commonly 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


203 


occasion stupefaction and intoxication. They are used, not¬ 
withstanding, but in carefully calculated quantities, and 
under wholly exceptional circumstances. 

He who decides to devote himself seriously to magical 
works, after fortifying his mind against all danger of hal¬ 
lucination and fright, must purify himself without and 
within for forty days. The number forty is sacred, and its 
very figure is magical. In Arabic numerals it consists of 
the circle, which is the type of the infinite, and of the 4, 
which sums the triad by unity. In Roman numerals, ar¬ 
ranged after the following manner, it represents the sign 
of the fundamental doctrine of Hermes, and the character 
of the Seal of Solomon:— 

X 

/ \ X 

XX XX 

\ / X 

X 

The purification of the magus consists in abstinence from 
coarse enjoyments, in a temperate and vegetable diet, in re¬ 
fraining from intoxicating drink, and in regulating the 
hours of sleep. This preparation has been indicated and 
represented in all forms of worship by a period of penitence 
and trials preceding the symbolical feasts of life-renewal. 

As already said, the most scrupulous external cleanliness 
must be observed; the poorest person can find spring water. 
All clothes, furniture, and vessels made use of must also be 
carefully washed, whether by ourselves or others. All dirt 
is evidence of negligence, and negligence is deadly in magic. 
The atmosphere must be purified at rising and retiring with 
a perfume composed of the juice of laurels, salt, camphor, 
white resin, and sulphur, repeating at the same time the 
four sacred names, while turning successively towards the 


204 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


four cardinal points. We must divulge to no one the works 
that we accomplish, for, as already said in the Doctrine, 
mystery is the exact and essential condition of all the ope¬ 
rations of science. The inquisitive must be misled by the 
pretence of other occupations and other researches, such as 
chemical experiments for industrial purposes, hygienic pre¬ 
scriptions, the investigation of some natural secrets, and so 
on; but the forbidden name of magic must never be pro¬ 
nounced. 

The magus must be isolated at the beginning and difficult 
to approach, so that he may concentrate his power and se¬ 
lect his points of contact, but in proportion as he is austere 
and inaccessible at first, so will he be popular and sought 
after when he shall have magnetised his chain and chosen his 
place in a current of ideas and of light. A laborious and 
poor existence is so favourable to practical initiation that 
the greatest masters have preferred it, even when the wealth 
of the world was at their disposal. Then it is that Satan, 
that is, the spirit of ignorance, who scorns, suspects, and 
detests science because at heart he fears it, comes to tempt 
the future master of the world by saying to him: ‘ £ If thou 
are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread. ’ ’ 
Then it is that mercenary men seek to humiliate the prince 
of knowledge by perplexing, depreciating, or sordidly ex¬ 
ploiting his labour; the slice of bread that he deigns to need 
is broken into ten fragments, so that he may ten times 
stretch forth his hand. But the magus does not even smile 
at the absurdity, and calmly pursues his work. 

So far as may be possible, we must avoid the sight of 
hideous objects and uncomely persons, must decline eating 
with those whom we do not esteem, and must live in the 
most uniform and studied manner. We must hold ourselves 
in the highest respect, and must consider that we are de¬ 
throned sovereigns who consent to existence in order to 
reconquer our crowns. We must be mild and considerate 
to all, but in social relations must never permit ourselves to 
be absorbed, and must withdraw from circles in which we 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


205 


cannot acquire some initiative. Finally, we may and should 
fulfil the duties and practise the rites of the cultus to which 
we belong. Now, of all forms of worship the most magical 
is that which most realises the miraculous, which bases the 
most inconceivable mysteries upon the highest reasons, which 
has lights equivalent to its shadows, which popularises 
miracles, and incarnates God in all mankind by faith. This 
religion has existed always in the world, and under many 
names has been ever the one and ruling religion. It has 
now among the nations of the earth three apparently hostile 
forms, which are, however, destined to unite before long for 
the constitution of one universal Church. I refer to the 
Greek orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and a final trans¬ 
figuration of the religion of Buddha, 

We have now made it plain, as we believe, that our magic 
is opposed to the goetic and necromantic kinds; it is at once 
an absolute science and religion, which should not indeed 
destroy and absorb all opinions and all forms of worship, 
but should regenerate and direct them by reconstituting the 
circle of initiates, and thus providing the blind masses with 
wise and clear-seeing leaders. 

We are living at a period when nothing remains to 
destroy and everything to remake. “Remake what? The 
past?” No one can remake the past. “What, then, shall 
we reconstruct? Temples and thornes?” To what pur¬ 
pose, since the former ones have been cast down? “You 
might as well say: my house has collapsed from age, of 
what use is it to build another?’’ But will the house that 
you contemplate erecting be like that which has fallen? 
No, for the one was old and the other will be new. “Not¬ 
withstanding, it will be always a house.” What more can 
you wish? 


206 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


CHAPTER II 

MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM 

Equilibrium is the consequence of two forces. If two forces 
are absolutely and invariably equal, the equilibrium will be 
immobility, and therefore the negation of life. Movement 
is the result of an alternate preponderance. The impulsion 
given to one of the sides of a balance necessarily determines 
the motion of the other. Thus contraries act on one another, 
throughout all nature, by correspondence and analogical 
connection. All life is composed of an aspiration and a 
respiration; creation is the assumption of a shadow to serve 
as a bound to light, of a void to serve as space for the 
plenitude, of a passive fructified principle to sustain and 
realise the power of the active generating principle. All 
nature is bisexual, and the movement which produces the 
appearances of death and life is a continual generation. 
God loves the void which he made in order to fill it; science 
loves the ignorance which it enlightens; strength loves the 
weakness which it supports; good loves the apparent evil 
which glorifies it; day is desirous of night, and pursues it 
unceasingly round the world; love is at once a thirst and a 
plenitude which must diffuse itself. He who gives receives, 
and he who receives gives; movement is a continual inter¬ 
change. To know the law of this change, to be acquainted 
with the alternative or simultaneous proportion of these 
forces, is to possess the first principles of the great magical 
arcanum, which constitutes true human divinity. Scien¬ 
tifically, we can appreciate the various manifestations of the 
universal movement through electric or magnetic phe¬ 
nomena. Electrical apparatuses above all materially and 
positively reveal the affinities and antipathies of certain 
substances. The marriage of copper with zinc, the action of 
all metals in the galvanic pile, are perpetual and unmis- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


207 


takable revelations. Let physicists seek and find out; ever 
will the kabbalists explain the discoveries of science! 

The human body is subject, like the earth, to a dual law; 
it attracts and it radiatesj it is magnetised by an androgyne 
magnetism, and reacts on the two powers of the soul, the 
intellectual and the sensitive, inversely, but in proportion to 
the alternating preponderances of the two sexes in their 
physical organism. The art of the magnetiser consists 
wholly in the knowledge and use of this law. To polarise 
the action and impart to the agent a bisexual and alternated 
forc e is the method still unknown and sought vainly for 
directing the phenomena of magnetism at will, but tact 
most experienced and great precision in the interior move¬ 
ments are required to prevent the confusion of the signs of 
magnetic aspiration with those of respiration j we must also 
be perfectly acquainted with occult anatomy and the special 
temperament of the persons on whom we are operating. 
Bad faith and bad will in subjects constitute the gravest 
hindrance to the direction of magnetism. Women above all 
—who are essentially and invariably actresses, who take 
pleasure in impressing others so that they may impress 
themselves, and are themselves the first to be deceived when 
playing their neurotio melodramas—are the true black 
magic of magnetism. So is it for ever impossible that mag- 
netisers who are uninitiated in the supreme secrets, and un¬ 
assisted by the lights of the Kabbalah, should govern this 
refractory and fugitive element. To be master of woman, 
we must distract and deceive her skilfully by allowing her 
to suppose that it is she who is deceiving us. This advice, 
which we offer chiefly to magnetising physicians, might also 
find its place and application in conjugal polity. 

Man can produce two breathings at his pleasure, one 
warm and the other cold; he can also project either the 
active or passive light at will; but he must acquire the 
consciousness of this power by habitually dwelling thereon. 
The same manual gesture may alternately aspire and respire 
what we are accustomed to call the fluid, and the magnetiser 


208 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


will himself be warned of the result of his intention by an 
alternative sensation of warmth and cold in the hand, or 
in both hands when both are being used, which sensation 
the subject should experience at the same time, but in a 
contrary sense, that is, with a wholly opposed alternative. 

The pentagram, or sign of the microcosmos, represents, 
among other magical mysteries, the double sympathy of the 
human extremities with each other and with the circulation 
of the astral light in the human body. Thus, when a man is 
represented in the star of the pentagram, as may be seen in 
the 1 ‘ Occult Philosophy ’ ’ of Agrippa, it should be observed 
that the head corresponds in masculine sympathy with the 
right foot and in feminine sympathy with the left foot; 
that the right hand corresponds in the same way with the 
left hand and left foot, and reciprocally of the other hand. 
This must be borne in mind when making magnetic passes, 
if we seek to govern the whole organism and bind all mem¬ 
bers by their proper chains of analogy and natural sym¬ 
pathy. The same knowledge is necessary for the use of the 
pentagram in the conjuration of spirits, and in the evoca¬ 
tion of errant spirits in the astral light, vulgarly called 
necromancy, as we shall explain in the fifth chapter of this 
Ritual. But it is well to observe here that every action 
promotes a reaction, and that in magnetising others, or 
influencing them magically, we establish between them and 
ourselves a current of contrary but analogous influence 
which may subject us to them instead of subjecting them to 
us, as happens frequently enough in those operations which 
have the sympathy of love for their object. Hence it is 
highly essential to be on our defence while we are attacking, 
so as not to aspire on the left while we respire on the right. 
The magical androgyne depicted in the frontispiece of the 
Ritual has solve inscribed upon the right and cogula on 
the left arm, which corresponds to the symbolical figure of 
the architects of the second temple, who bore their sword in 
one hand and their trowel in the other. While building 
they had also to defend their work and disperse their 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


209 


enemies; nature herself does likewise, destroying and re¬ 
generating at the same time. Now, according to the alle¬ 
gory of Duchentau’s Magical Calendar, man, that is to say, 
the initiate, is the ape of nature, who confines him by a 
chain, but makes him act unceasingly, imitating the proceed¬ 
ings and works of his divine mistress and imperishable 
model. 

The alternate use of contrary forces, warmth after cold, 
mildness after severity, -love after anger, &c., is the secret of 
perpetual motion and the permanence of power; coquettes 
feel this instinctively, and hence they make their admirers 
pass from hope to fear, from joy to despondency. To 
operate always on the same side and in the same manner is 
to overweight one plate of the balance, and the complete 
destruction of equilibrium is the speedy result. Continual 
caressings beget satiety, disgust, and antipathy, just as con¬ 
stant coldness and severity in the long run alienate and dis¬ 
courage affection. An unvarying and ardent fire in al¬ 
chemy calcines the first matter and not seldom explodes the 
hermetic vessel; the heat of lime and mineral manure must 
be substituted at regular intervals for the heat of flame. 
And so also in magic; the works of wrath or severity must 
be tempered by those of beneficence and love, and if the 
will of the operator be always at the same tension and 
directed along the same line, great weariness will ensue, to¬ 
gether with a species of moral impotence. 

Thus, the magus should not live altogether in his labora¬ 
tory, among his athanor, elixirs, and pantacles. However 
devouring be the glance of that Circe who is called occult 
power, we must know how to confront her on occasion with 
the sword of Ulysses, and how to withdraw our lips for a 
time from the chalice which she offers us. A magical opera¬ 
tion should always be followed by a rest of equal length and 
a distraction analogous but contrary in its object. To strive 
continually against nature in order to her rule and con¬ 
quest is to risk reason and life. Paracelsus dared to do so, 
but even in the warfare itself he employed equilibrated 


210 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


forces and opposed the intoxication of wine to that of in¬ 
telligence. So was Paracelsus a man of inspiration and 
miracles; yet his life was exhausted by this devouring ac¬ 
tivity, or rather its vestment was rapidly rent and worn 
out; but men like Paracelsus can use and abuse fearlessly; 
they well know that they can no more die than grow old 
here below. 

Nothing induces us towards joy so effectually as sorrow; 
nothing is nearer to sorrow than joy. Hence the unin¬ 
structed operator is astounded by attaining the very op¬ 
posite of his proposed results, because he does not know 
how to cross or alternate his action; he seeks to bewitch 
his enemy, and himself becomes ill and miserable; he de¬ 
sires to make himself loved, and he consumes himself for 
women who deride him; he endeavours to make gold, and 
he exhausts all his resources; his torture is that of Tantalus 
eternally; ever does the water flow back when he stoops 
down to drink. The ancients in their symbols and magical 
operations multiplied the signs of the duad, so that its law 
of equilibrium might be remembered. In their evocations 
they invariably constructed two altars, and immolated two 
victims, one white and one black; the operator, whether 
male or female, holding a sword in one hand and a wand 
in the other, had one foot shod and the other bared. At the 
same time, either one or three persons were required for 
magical works, because the duad would be immobility or 
death in the absence of the equilibrating motor; and when 
a man and a woman participated in the ceremony, the 
operator was either a virgin, a hermaphrodite, or a child. 
I shall be asked whether the eccentricity of these rites is 
arbitrary, and whether its one end is the exercise of the 
will by the mere multiplication of difficulties in magical 
work? I answer that in magic there is nothing arbitrary, 
because everything is ruled and predetermined by the one 
and universal dogma of Hermes, that of analogy in the 
three worlds. Each sign corresponds to an idea, and to 
the special form of an idea; each act expresses a volition 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


211 


corresponding to a thought, and formulates the analogies of 
that thought and that will. The rites are, therefore, pre¬ 
arranged by the science itself. The uninstructed person 
who is not acquainted with the three powers is subject to 
their mysterious fascination; the sage understands those 
powers, and makes them the instrument of his will, but 
when they are accomplished with exactitude and faith, 
they are never ineffectual. 

All magical instruments must be duplicated; there must 
be two swords, two wands, two cups, two chafing-dishes, 
two pantacles, and two lamps; two vestments must be 
worn, one over the other, and they must be of contrary 
colours, a rule still followed by Catholic priests; and either 
no metal, or two at the least, must be worn. The crowns 
of laurel, rue, mugwort, or vervain must, in like manner, be 
double; one of them is used in evocations, while the other 
is burnt, the crackling which it makes and the curls of the 
smoke which it produces being observed like an augury. 
Nor is the observance vain, for in the magical work all the 
instruments of art are magnetised by the operator; the air 
is charged with his perfumes, the fire which he has conse¬ 
crated is subject to his will, the forces of nature seem to 
hear and answer him; he reads in all forms the modifica¬ 
tions and complements of his thought. He perceives the 
water agitated, and, as it were, bubbling of itself, the fire 
blazing up or extinguishing suddenly, the leaves of the gar¬ 
lands, rustling, the magical rod moving spontaneously, and 
strange, unknown voices passing through the air. It was 
in such evocations that Julian beheld the beloved phantoms 
of his dethroned gods, and was appalled at their decrepitude 
and pallor. 

I am aware that Christianity has for ever suppressed 
ceremonial magic, and that it severely proscribes the evoca¬ 
tions and sacrifices of the old world. It is not, therefore, 
our intention to give a new ground for their existence by 
revealing the antique mysteries after the lapse of so many 
centuries. Even in this very order of phenomena, our ex- 


212 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


periences have been scholarly researches and nothing more. 
We have confirmed facts that we might appreciate causes, 
and it has never been our pretension to restore rites which 
are for ever destroyed. The orthodoxy of Israel, that re¬ 
ligion which is so rational, so divine, and so ill known, con¬ 
demns, no less than Christianity, the mysteries of cere¬ 
monial magic. From the standpoint of the tribe of Levi, 
the exercise of transcendent magic must be considered as an 
usurpation of the priesthood; and the same reason has 
caused the proscription of operative magic by every official 
cultus. To demonstrate the natural foundation of the 
marvellous, and to produce it at will, is to annihilate for the 
vulgar mind that conclusive evidence from miracles which 
is claimed by each religion as its exclusive property and 
its final argument. Respect for established religions, but 
room also for science! We have passed, thank God, the 
days of inquisitions and pyres; unhappy men of learning 
are no longer murdered on the faith of a few distraught 
fanatics or hysterical girls. For the rest, let it be clearly 
understood that our undertaking is concerned with studies 
of the curious, and not with an impossible propaganda. 
Those who may blame us for daring to term ourselves magi¬ 
cian have nothing to fear from the example, it being wholly 
improbable that they will ever become sorcerers. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


213 


CHAPTER III 

THE TRIANGLE OF PANTACLES 

The Abbot Trithemius, who in magic was the master of 
Cornelius Agrippa, explains, in his ‘ ‘ Steganography, ’ ’ the 
secret of conjurations and evocations after a very natural 
and philosophical manner, though possibly* for that very 
reason, too simply and too easily. He tells us that to evoke 
a spirit is to enter into the dominant thought of that spirit, 
and if we raise ourselves morally higher along the same line, 
we shall draw the spirit away with us, and it will certainly 
serve us. To conjure is to oppose the resistance of a cur¬ 
rent and a chain to an isolated spirit —cum jurare, to swear 
together, that is, to make a common act of faith. The 
greater the strength and enthusiasm of this faith, the more 
efficacious is the conjuration. This is why new-born Chris¬ 
tianity silenced the oracles; it only possessed inspiration, it 
only force. Later on, when St Peter grew old, that is, when 
the world believed that it had a legal case against the 
Papacy, the spirit of prophecy came to replace the oracles; 
Savonarola, Joachim of Flores, John Hus, and so many 
others, by turns influenced the minds of men, and inter¬ 
preted, by lamentations and menaces, the secret anxieties 
and rebellions of all hearts. 

We may act individually when evoking a spirit, but to 
conjure we must speak in the name of a circle or an associa¬ 
tion ; this is the significance of the hieroglyphical circle 
traced round the magus who is operating, and out of which 
he must not pass unless he wishes at the same moment to 
be stripped of all his power. Let us grapple at this point 
with the vital and palmary question, whether the real evoca¬ 
tion and real conjuration of spirits are things possible, and 
whether such possibility can be scientifically demonstrated. 
To the first part of the question it may be replied out of 
hand that everything which is not an evident impossibility 


214 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


can and must be admitted as provisionally possible. As to 
the second part, we affirm that in virtue of the great magical 
dogma of the hierarchy and of universal analogy, the kab- 
balistic possibility of real evocations can be demonstrated; 
concerning the phenomenal reality consequent upon magical 
operations accomplished with sincerity, this is a matter of 
experience; as already described, we have established it in 
our own persons, and by means of this Ritual we shall place 
our readers in a position to renew and confirm our ex¬ 
periences. 

Nothing in nature perishes; whatsoever has lived goes 
on living always under new forms; but even the anterior 
forms are not destroyed, since they persist in our memory. 
Do we not still see in imagination the child we once knew, 
though now he is an old man? The very traces which we 
believe to be effaced from our memory are not in reality 
blotted out, for a fortuitous circumstance may evoke and 
recall them. But after what manner do we see them? As 
we have already said, it is in the astral light, which trans¬ 
mits them to our brain by the mechanism of the nervous 
system. On the other hand, all forms are proportional and 
analogical to the idea which has determined them; they are 
the natural character, the signature of that idea, as the magi 
term it, and so soon as the idea is actively evoked, the 
form is realised and bodied forth. Sehroepffer, the famous 
illumine of Leipsic, terrified all Germany with his evoca¬ 
tions, and his audacity in magical experiments was so great 
that his reputation became an insupportable burden; he 
allowed himself to be carried away by the immense current 
of hallucinations which he had produced; the visions of the 
other world disgusted him with this, and he killed himself. 
His story should be a warning to those who are fascinated 
by ceremonial magic. Nature is not outraged with im¬ 
punity, and no one can safely play with unknown and in¬ 
calculable forces. It is this consideration which has led, 
and will ever lead, us to withstand the vain curiosity of 
those who would see in order that they may believe, and 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


215 


we reply to them in the same words as we replied to an 
eminent Englishman who threatened us with his scepticism: 
“You are perfectly within your right in refusing to be¬ 
lieve ; for our own part, it will not make us more discour¬ 
aged or less convinced . 9 ’ To those who may assure us that 
they have scrupulously and boldly fulfilled all the rites, and 
that there has been no result, we would recommend that 
they should stay their hand, as it is possibly a warning of 
nature, who will not lend herself for them to these anoma¬ 
lous works; but if they persist in their curiosity, they have 
only to start afresh. 

The triad, being the foundation of magical doctrine, must 
necessarily be observed in evocation, so is it the sym¬ 
bolical number of realisation and effect. The letter is 
commonly traced upon kabbalistic pantacles which have the 
fulfilment of a desire for their object. It is also the sign 
of the scapegoat in mystic kabbalah, and Saint Martin 
observes that inserted in the incommunicable tetragram it 
forms the name of the Redeemer pntSTP It is this which 
the mystagogues of the middle ages represented in their 
nocturnal assemblies by the exhibition of a symbolical goat, 
carrying a lighted torch between its two horns. In the 
fifteenth chapter of the Ritual we shall describe the alle¬ 
gorical forms and strange cultus of this monstrous animal, 
which represented nature doomed to anathema but ran¬ 
somed by the sign of light. The gnostic agapae and pagan 
priapic orgies which followed in its honour sufficiently re¬ 
vealed the moral consequence which the adepts drew from 
the exhibition. All this will be explained together with the 
rites, decried and now regarded as fabulous, of the great 
Sabbath and of Black Magic. 

Within the grand circle of evocations a triangle was 
usually traced, and the side towards which the upper point 
must be directed was a matter for careful observation. If 
the spirit were supposed to be from heaven, the operator 
placed himself at the top, and set the altar of fumigations 
at the bottom; but if the spirit came from the abyss this 


216 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


method was reversed. Moreover, the sacred symbol of two 
interlaced triangles, forming the six-pointed star, known in 
magic as the pantacle or Seal of Solomon, must be worn 
upon the forehead and the breast, and graven in the right 
hand. Independently of these signs, the ancients, in their 
evocations, made use of those mystical combinations of 
divine names which we have reproduced in our Doctrine 
from the Hebrew kabbalists. The magic triangle of Papan 
theosophists was the celebrated ABRACADABRA, to 
which they attributed extraordinary virtues, and repre¬ 
sented as follows:— 

ABRACADABRA 

ABRACADABR 

ABRACADAB 

ABRACADA 

ABRACAD 

ABRACA 

ABRAC 

ABRA 

ABR 

AB 

A 


This combination of letters is a key of the pentagram. 
The initial A is repeated five and reproduced thirty times, 
thus giving the elements and numbers of the two following 
figures:— 



The isolated A represents the unity of the first principle, 
otherwise, the intellectual or active agent. A united to B 



TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


217 


represents the fertilisation of the duad by the monad. R is 
the sign of the triad, because it represents hieroglyphically 
the emission which results from the union of the two 
principles. The number 11, which is that of the letters of 
the word, combines the unity of the initiate with the denary 
of Pythagoras, and the number 66, the added total of all 
the letters, kabbalistically forms the number 12, which is 
the square of the triad, and consequently the mystic quad¬ 
rature of the circle. We may remark, in passing, that the au¬ 
thor of the Apocalypse, that key of the Christian Kabbalah, 
composed the number of the beast, that is to say, of idolatry, 
by adding a 6 to the double senary of ABRACADABRA, 
which gives 18 kabbalistically, the number attributed in the 
Tarot to the hieroglyphic sign of night and of the profane 
—the moon, together with the towers, dog, wolf, and crab 
—a mysterious and obscure number, the kabbalistic key of 
which is 9, the number of initiation. On this subject the 
sacred kabbalist says expressly: “He that hath under¬ 
standing (that is, the key of kabbalistic numbers), let him 
count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a 
man, and the number of him is 666.” It is, in fact, the 
decade of Pythagoras multiplied by itself and added to the 
sum of the triangular Pantacle of Abracadabra; it is thus 
the sum of all magic of the ancient world, the entire pro¬ 
gramme of human genius which the divine genius of the 
Gospel sought to absorb or transplant. 

These hieroglyphical combinations of letters and numbers 
belong to the practical part of the kabbalah, which, from 
this point of view, is divided into Gematriah and Temurah. 
Such calculations, which now seem to us arbitrary or devoid 
of interest, then belonged to the philosophical symbolism of 
the East, and were of the highest importance in the teaching 
of holy things emanating from the occult sciences. The 
absolute kabbalistic alphabet, which connected primitive 
ideas with allegories, allegories with letters, and letters with 
numbers, was then called the keys of Solomon. We have 
already stated that these keys, preserved to our own day, 


218 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


but wholly misconstrued, are nothing else than the game of 
Tarot, the antique allegories of which were remarked and 
appreciated for the first time in the modem world by the 
learned archaeologist, Court de Gebelin. 

The double triangle of Solomon is explained by St John 
in a remarkable manner. He says, ‘ ‘ There are three which 
give testimony in heaven—the Father, the Word, and the 
Holy Spirit; and there are three which give testimony on 
earth—the spirit, the water, and the blood.” Thus, St John 
agrees with the masters of Hermetic philosophy, who attri¬ 
bute to their sulphur the name of ether, to their mercury 
that of philosophical water, and to their salt the qualifica¬ 
tion of the dragon’s blood or menstruum of the earth ; blood 
or salt corresponds by opposition with the Father, azotic or 
mercurial water with the Word or Logos, and the ether with 
the Holy Spirit. But the things of transcendent symbolism 
can only be rightly understood by the true children of 
science. 

The threefold repetition of names with varied intona¬ 
tions was united to triangular combinations in magical cere¬ 
monies. The magic rod was frequently surmounted with a 
small magnetised fork, which Paracelsus replaced by the 
trident represented below. 



This trident is a pantacle expressing the synthesis of the 
triad in the monad, thus completing the sacred tetrad. He 
ascribed to this figure all the virtues which kabbalistic 
Hebrews attribute to the name of Jehovah, and the thauma- 










TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


219 


turgic properties of the Abracadabra used by the hiero¬ 
phants of Alexandria. Let us here recognise that it is a 
pantacle, and consequently a concrete and an aboslute sign 
of an entire doctrine which has been that of an immense 
magnetic circle, not only for ancient philosophers, but also 
for adepts of the middle ages. The restoration in our own 
day of its original value by the comprehension of its mys¬ 
teries, might not that also restore all its miraculous virtue 
and all its power against human diseases? 

The old sorceresses, when they spent the night at the 
meeting-place of three cross-roads, yelled three times in 
honour of the triple Hecate. All these figures, all these 
dispositions of numbers and of characters, are, as we have 
already said, so many instruments for the education of the 
will, by fixing and determining its habits. They serve, 
furthermore, to conjoin all the powers of the human soul in 
action, and to increase the creative force of the imagination; 
it is the gymnastics of thought in training for realisation; 
so the effect of these practices is infallible, like nature, 
when they are fulfilled with absolute confidence and in¬ 
domitable perseverance. The Grand Master tells us that 
faith could transplant trees into the sea and remove moun¬ 
tains. Even a superstitious and insensate practice is 
efficacious because it is a realisation of the will. Hence a 
prayer is more powerful if we go to church to say it than 
when it is said at home, and it will work miracles if we 
fare to a famous sanctuary for the purpose, in other words, 
to one wdiich is strongly magnetised by the enormous num¬ 
ber of its frequenters, traversing two or three hundred 
leagues with bare feet, and asking alms by the way. Men 
laugh at the simple woman who denies herself a penny¬ 
worth of milk in the morning that she may carry a penny 
taper to bum on the magic triangle in a chapel; but they 
who laugh are ignorant, and the simple woman does not 
pay too dearly for what she thus purchases of resignation 
and of courage. Great minds with great pride pass by, 
shrugging their shoulders; they rise up against superstition 


( 


220 TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 

with a din which shakes the world; and what happens? 
The towers of the great minds topple over, and their ruins 
revert to the providers and purchasers of penny tapers, who 
are content to hear it everywhere proclaimed that their 
reign is for ever ended, povided that they rule always. 

The great religions have never had more than one serious 
rival, and this rival is ma£ic. Magic produced the occult 
associations which brought about the revolution termed the 
Renaissance; but it has been the doom of the human mind, 
blinded by insensate passions, to realise literally the alle¬ 
gorical history of the Hebrew Hercules; by overthrowing 
the pillars of the temple, it has itself been buried under the 
ruins. The masonic associations of the present time are no 
less ignorant of the high meaning of their symbols than are 
the rabbins of the Sepher Jetzirah and the Zohar upon the 
ascending scale of the three degrees, with the transverse 
progression from right to left and from left to right of the 
kabbalistic septenary. The compass of the G.*.A.\ and 
the square of Solomon have become the gross and material 
level of unintelligent Jacobinism, realised by a steel tri¬ 
angle ; this obtains both for heaven and earth. The initiated 
divulgers to whom the illuminated Cazotte predicted a vio¬ 
lent death have, in our own days, exceeded the sin of Adam; 
having rashly gathered the fruits of the tree of knowledge, 
which they did not know how to use for their nourishment, 
they have cast it to the beasts and reptiles of the earth. 
So was the reign of superstition inaugurated, and it must 
persist until the period when true religion shall be again 
constituted on the eternal foundations of the hierarchy of 
three degrees, and of the triple power which the hierarchy 
exercises blindly or providentially in the three worlds. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


221 


CHAPTER IV 

THE CONJURATION OF THE FOUR. 

The four elementary forms roughly separate and distin¬ 
guish the created spirits which the universal movement 
disengages from the central fire. The spirit everywhere 
toils and fructifies matter by life; all matter is animated; 
thought and soul are everywhere. By possessing ourselves 
of the thought which produces diverse forms, we become 
the master of forms, and make them serve our purposes. 
The astral light is saturated with such souls, which it 
disengages in the unceasing generation of beings. These 
souls have imperfect wills, which can be governed and em¬ 
ployed by more powerful wills; then great invisible chains 
form, and may occasion or determine great elementary com¬ 
motions. The phenomena established by the criminal trials 
of magic, and quite recently by M. Eudes de Mirville, have 
no other cause. Elementary spirits are like children: they 
chiefly torment those who trouble about them, unless, in¬ 
deed, they are controlled by high reason and great severity. 
We designate these spirits under the name of occult ele¬ 
ments, and it is these who frequently occasion our bizarre 
or disturbing dreams, who produce the moveemnts of the 
divining rod and rappings upon walls or furniture, but they 
can manifest no thought other than our own, and when we 
are not thinking, they speak to us with all the incoherence 
of dreams. They reproduce good and evil indifferently, 
for they are without free will, and are hence irresponsible; 
they exhibit themselves to ecstatics and somnambulists 
under incomplete and fugitive forms. This explains the 
nightmares of St Anthony, and most probably the visions of 
Swedenborg. Such creatures are neither damned nor 
guilty, they are curious and innocent. We may use or abuse 
them like animals or children. Therefore the magus who 


222 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


makes use of them assumes a terrible responsibility, for 
he must expiate all the evil which he causes them to ac¬ 
complish, and the intensity of his punishment will be in 
proportion to the extent of the power which he may have 
exercised by their mediation. 

To govern elementary spirits, and thus become the king 
of the occult elements, we must first have undergone the 
four ordeals of ancient initiations; and seeing that these 
initiations exist no longer, we must have substituted analo¬ 
gous experiences, such as exposing ourselves boldly in a 
fire, crossing an abyss by means of the trunk of a tree or a 
plank, scaling a perpendicular mountain during a storm, 
swimming through a dangerous whirlpool or cataract. A 
man who is timid in the water will never reign over the 
undines; one who is afraid of fire will never command sala¬ 
manders; so long as we are liable to giddiness we must 
leave the sylphs in peace, and forbear from irritating the 
gnomes; for inferior spirits will only obey a power which 
has overcome them in their own element. When this in¬ 
contestable faculty has been acquired by exercise and dar¬ 
ing, the word of our will must be imposed on the elements 
by special consecrations of air, fire, water, and earth. This 
is the indispensable preliminary of all magical operations. 
The air is exercised by breathing towards the four cardinal 
points, saying:— 

The Spirit of God moved upon the waters, and breathed 
into the face of man the breath of life. Be Michael, my 
leader, and Sabtabiel, my servant, in and by the light. 
May my breath become a word, and I will rule the spirits 
of this creature of air; I will curb the steeds of the sun by 
the will of my heart, and by the thought of my mind, and 
by the apple of the right eye. Therefore I do exorcise thee, 
creature of air, by Pentagrammaton, and in the name 
Tetragrammaton, wherein are firm will and true faith. 
Amen. Sela: Fiat. So be it. 

The prayer of the sylphs must next be recited, after 
tracing their sign in the air with the quill of an eagle. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


223 


Prayer of the Sylphs. 

Spirit of Light, Spirit of Wisdom, whose breath gives and 
takes away the form of all things; Thou before whom the 
life of every being is a shadow which transforms and a 
vapour which passes away; Thou who ascendest upon the 
clouds and dost fly upon the wings of the wind; Thou who 
breathest out and the limitless immensities are peopled; 
Thou who breathest in and all which came forth from Thee 
unto Thee returneth; endless movement in the eternal 
stability, be Thou blessed for ever! We praise Thee and 
we bless Thee in the fleeting empire of created light, of 
shadows, reflections, and images, and we aspire without 
ceasing towards Thine immutable and imperishable splen¬ 
dour. May the ray of Thine intelligence and the warmth 
of Thy love descend on us; then what is volatile shall be 
fixed, the shadow shall become body, the spirit of the air 
shall receive a soul, and the dream be a thought. We shall 
be swept away no more before the tempest, but shall bridle 
the winged steeds of the morning, and guide the course of 
the evening winds, that we may flee into Thy presence. 0 
Spirit of Spirits, 0 eternal Soul of Souls, 0 imperishable 
Breath of Life, 0 Creative Sigh, O Mouth which dost 
breathe forth and withdraw the life of all beings in the ebb 
and flow of Thine eternal speech, which is the divine ocean 
of movement and of truth! Amen. 

Water is exorcised by imposition of hands, breathing, and 
speech; consecrated salt, and a little of the ash which re¬ 
mains in the pan of incense, are also mingled with it. The 
aspergillus is formed of twigs of vervain, periwinkle, sage, 
mint, ash, and basil, tied by a thread taken from a virgin’s 
distaff, and provided with a handle of hazelwood from a tree 
which has not yet fruited; the characters of the seven 
spirits must be graven thereon with the magic bodkin. The 
salt and ash must be separately consecrated, saying: 

Over the Salt. 

May wisdom abide in this salt, and may it preserve our 


224 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


minds and bodies from all corruption, by Hochmael, and 
in the virtue of Ruach-Hochmael! May the phantoms of 
Hyle depart herefrom, that it may become a heavenly salt, 
salt of the earth and earth of salt, that it may feed the 
threshing ox, and strengthen our hope with the horns of 
the flying bull! Amen. 

Over the Ash. 

\ 

May this ash return unto the fount of living waters, may 
it become a fertile earth, and may it bring forth the tree of 
life, by the Three Names, which are Netsah, Hod, and 
Jesod, in the beginning and in the end, by Alpha and 
Omega, which are in the spirit of Azoth ! Amen. 

Mingling the Water, Salt, and Ash. 

In the salt of eternal wisdom, in the water of regenera¬ 
tion, and in the ash whence the new earth springeth, be all 
things accomplished by Eloi'm, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, 
through the ages and aeons! Amen. 

Exorcism of the Water. 

Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and 
let it divide the waters from the waters; the things which 
are above are like unto things which are below, and things 
below are like unto things above, for the performance of the 
wonders of one thing. The sun is its father, the moon its 
mother, the wind hath carried it in the belly thereof; it 
ascendeth from earth to heaven, and again it descendeth 
from heaven to earth. I exorcise thee, creature of water, 
that thou mayest become unto men a mirror of the living 
God in His works, a fount of life, and ablution of sins. 

Prayer of the TJndines. 

Dread King of the Sea, who hast the keys of the flood¬ 
gates of heaven, and dost confine the waters of the under¬ 
world in the caverns of earth; King of the deluge and the 
floods of the springtime; Thou who dost unseal the sources 
of rivers and fountains; Thou who does ordain moisture, 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


225 


which is like the blood of earth, to become the sap of 
plants: Thee we adore and Thee we invoke! Speak unto 
us, Thine inconstant and unstable creatures, in the great 
tumults of the sea, and we shall tremble before Thee; 
Speak unto us also in the murmur of limpid waters, and we 
shall yearn for Thy love! O Immensity into which flow 
all the rivers of life, to be continually reborn in Thee! O 
ocean of infinite perfections! Height which reflects Thee 
in the depth, depth which exhales Thee to the height, lead 
us unto true life by intelligence and love! Lead us to im¬ 
mortality by sacrifice, that we may be found worthy one 
day to offer Thee water, blood, and tears, for the remission 
of sins! Amen. 

Fire is exorcised by the sprinkling of salt, incense, white 
resin, camphor, and sulphur, by thrice pronouncing the 
three names of the genii of fire: Michael, king of the sun 
and the lightning; Samuel, king of volcanoes; and Anael, 
prince of the astral light; and, finally, by reciting the 

Prayer of the Salamanders. 

Immortal, eternal, ineffable, and uncreated Father of all 
things, who art borne upon the ever-rolling chariot of worlds 
which revolve unceasingly; Lord of the ethereal immen¬ 
sities, where the throne of Thy power is exalted, from 
which height Thy terrible eyes discern all things, and Thy 
holy and beautiful ears unto all things hearken, hear Thou 
Thy children, whom Thou didst love before the ages began; 
for Thy golden, Thy grand, Thine eternal majesty shines 
above the world and the heaven of stars! Thou art exalted 
over them, 0 glittering fire! There dost thou shine, there 
dost Thou commune with Thyself by Thine own splendour, 
and inexhaustible streams of light pour from Thine essence 
for the nourishment of Thine infinite spirit, which itself 
doth nourish all things, and forms that inexhaustible 
treasure of substance ever ready for generation, which 
adapts it and appropriates the forms Thou hast impressed 
on it from the beginning! From this spirit the three most 


226 


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holy kings who surround Thy throne and constitute Thy 
court, derive also their origin, O universal Father! 0 sole 
and only Father of blessed mortals and immortals! In 
particular Thou hast created powers which are marvellously 
like unto Thine eternal thought and Thine adorable essence; 
Thou hast established them higher than the angles, who pro¬ 
claim Thy will to the world; finally, Thou hast created us 
third in rank within our elementary empire. There our un¬ 
ceasing exercise is to praise Thee and adore Thy good 
pleasure; there we burn continually in our aspiration to 
possess Thee. 0 Father! 0 Mother, most tender of all 
mothers! 0 admirable archetype of maternity and of pure 
love! 0 son, flower of sons! 0 form of all forms, soul, spirit, 
harmony, and number of all things! Amen. 

The earth is exorcised by aspersion of water, by breah- 
ing, and by fire, with the perfumes proper for each day, 
and the 

Prayer of the Gnomes. 

King invisible, who, taking the earth as a support, didst 
furrow the abysses to fill them with Thine omnipotence; 
Thou whose name doth shake the vaults of the world, Thou 
who causest the seven metals to flow through the veins of 
the rock, monarch of the seven lights, rewarder of the sub¬ 
terranean toilers, lead us unto the desirable air, and to the 
realm of splendour. We watch and we work unremittingly, 
we seek and we hope, by the twelve stones of the Holy 
City, by the hidden talismans, by the pole of loadstone 
which passes through the centre of the world! Saviour, 
Saviour, Saviour, have pity on those who suffer, expand our 
hearts, detach and elevate our minds, enlarge our entire 
being! 0 stability and motion! O day clothed with 
night! 0 darkness veiled by light! 0 master who never 
keepest back the wages of Thy labourers! 0 silver white¬ 
ness! 0 golden splendour! O crown of living and melo¬ 
dious diamonds! Thou who wearest the heaven on Thy 
finger like a sapphire ring, Thou who concealest under the 
earth, in the stone kingdom, the marvellous seed of stars, 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


227 


live, reign, be the eternal dispenser of the wealth whereof 
Thou hast made us the warders! Amen. 

It must be borne in mind that the special kingdom of 
the gnomes is at the north, that of the salamanders at the 
south, that of the sylphs at the east, and that of the undines 
at the west. These beings influence the four temperaments 
of man, that is to say, the gnomes affect the melancholy, 
salamanders the sanguine, undines the phlegmatic, and 
sylphs the bilious. Their signs are—the hieroglyphs of the 
bull for the gnomes, who are commanded with the sword; 
those of the lion for the salamanders, who are commanded 
with the bifurcated rod or the magic trident; those of the 
eagle for the sylphs, who are commanded by the holy pan- 
tacles; finally, those of the water-carrier for the undines, 
who are commanded by the cup of libations. Their respec¬ 
tive sovereigns are Gob for the gnomes, Djm for the sala¬ 
manders, Paralda for the sylphs, and Nicksa for the un¬ 
dines. 

When an elementary spirit torments, or, at least, vexes, 
the inhabitants of this world, it must be conjured by air, 
water, fire, and earth, by breathing, sprinkling, burning of 
perfumes, and by tracing on the earth the star of Solomon 
and the sacred pentagram. These figures must be perfectly 
correct, and drawn either with the charcoal of consecrated 
fire, or with a reed dipped in various colours, mixed with 
powdered loadstone. Then, holding the pantacle of Solomon 
in one hand and taking up successively the sword, rod, and 
cup, the conjuration of the four should be recited with a 
loud voice, after the following manner:—Caput mortuum, 
the Lord command thee by the living and votive serpent! 
Cherub, the Lord command thee by Adam Jotchavah! 
Wandering Eagle, the Lord command thee by the wings of 
the Bull! Serpent, the Lord Tetragrammaton command 
thee by the angel and the lion! Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, 
and Anael! Flow, moisture, by the spirit of Eloim. 
Earth, be established by Adam Jotchavah. Spread, 
firmament, by Jahuvehu Zebaoth. Fulfil, judgment, by 


228 


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fire in the virtue of Michael. Angel of the blind eyes, 
obey, or pass away with this holy water! Work, winged 
bull, or revert to the earth, unless thou wilt that I should 
pierce thee with this sword. Chained eagle, obey my sign, 
or fly before this breathing! Writhing serpent, crawl at 
my feet, or be tortured by the sacred fire, and give way 
before the perfumes that I bum in it! Water return to 
water, fire burn, air circulate, earth revert to earth, by 
virtue of the pentagram, which is the morning star, and by 
the name of the Tetragram, which is written in the centre of 
the cross of light! Amen. 

The sign of the cross adopted by Christians does not 
belong to them exclusively. It is also kabbalistic, and 
represents the oppositions and tetradic equilibrium of the 
elements. We see by the occult versicle of the Lord’s 
Prayer, which we have cited in our Doctrine, that it was 
originally made after two manners, or at least that it was 
characterized by two entirely different formulas, one re¬ 
served for priests and initiates, the other imparted to 
neophytes and the profane. For example, the initiate said, 
raising his hand to his forehead, “For thine,” then added 
“is,” and continuing as he brought down his hand to his 
breast, “the kingdom,” then to the left shoulder, “the 
justice,” afterwards to the right shoulder, “and the mercy” 
—then clasping his hands, he added, “in the generating 
ages.” Tibi sunt Malchut et Geburah et Chesed per ceonas 
—a sign of the cross which is absolutely and magnificently 
kabbalistic, which the profanations of Gnosticism have com¬ 
pletely lost to the official and militant Church. This sign, 
made after this manner, should precede and terminate the 
conjuration of the four. 

To overcome and subjugate the elementary spirits, we 
must never yield to their characteristic defects. Thus, a 
shallow and capricious mind will never rule the sylphs; an 
irresolute, cold, and fickle nature will never master the 
undines; passion irritates the salamanders, and avaricious 
greed makes its slaves the sport of the gnomes. But we 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


229 


must be prompt and active, like the sylphs; pliant and 
attentive to images, like the undines; energetic and strong, 
like the salamanders; laborious and patient like the gnomes; 
in a word, we must overcome them in their strength with¬ 
out ever being overcome by their weaknesses. Once we are 
well established in this disposition, the whole world will be 
at the service of the wise operator. He will pass through 
the storm, and the rain will not moisten his head; the wind 
will not move even a fold of his garments; he will go 
through fire and not be burned; he will walk upon the 
water, and will behold diamonds within the crust of the 
earth. These promises may appear hyperbolic, but only 
to vulgar understanding, for if the sage do not materially 
and actually perform these things, he accomplishes others 
which are much greater and more admirable. At the same 
time, it is indubitable that we may direct the elements by 
our will up to a certain point, and can really change or 
hinder their effects. For example, if it be established that 
persons in an ecstatic state lose their weight for the time 
being, why should it be impossible to walk upon the water ? 
The convulsionaries of Saint Medard felt neither fire nor 
steel, and begged for the most violent blows and incredible 
tortures as a relief. The extraordinary climbings and 
miraculous equilibrium of some somnambulists are a revela¬ 
tion of these concealed forces of nature. But we live in a 
century when no one has the courage to confess the wonders 
he has witnessed, and did any one say: “I have myself 
beheld or performed the things which I am describing, ” 
he would be answered: “You are amusing yourself at our 
expense, or, otherwise, you are ill.” It is far better to be 
silent and to act. 

The metals which correspond to the four elementary 
forms are gold and silver for the air, mercury for water, 
iron and copper for fire, lead for earth. Talismans are 
composed from these, relative to the forces which they 
signify and to the effects which it is designed to obtain 
from them. Divination by the four elementary forms, re- 


230 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


spectively known as seromancy, hydromancy, pyromancy, 
and geomancy, is performed after various manners, which 
all depend on the will and the translucid, or imagination, of 
the operator. In fact, the four elements are only instru¬ 
ments which assist second sight. Now, second sight is the 
faculty of seeing in the astral light, and it is natural as the 
first or sensible and ordinary sight, but it can only operate 
by the abstraction of the senses. Somnambulists and 
ecstatics enjoy second sight naturally, but this sight is more 
lucid when the abstraction is more complete. Abstraction 
is produced by astral intoxication, that is, by an excess of 
light which completely saturates, and hence stupefies, the 
nervous system. 

Sanguine temperaments are disposed to agromancy, the 
bilious to pyromancy, the phlegmatic to hydromancy, and 
the melancholic to geomancy. ^Eromancy is confirmed by 
oneiromancy, or divination by dreams; pyromancy is sup¬ 
plemented by magnetism; hydromancy by crystallomancy; 
and geomancy by cartomancy. These are transpositions and 
completement of methods. But divination, however 
operated, is dangerous, or, to say the least, useless, for it 
disheartens will, as a consequence, impedes liberty, and tires 
the nervous system. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


231 


CHAPTER V 

THE BLAZING PENTAGRAM. 

We proceed to the explanation and consecration of the 
sacred and mysterious pentagram. At this point, let the 
ignorant and superstitious close the book; they will either 
see nothing but darkness, or they will be scandalised. The 
pentagram, which, in gnostic schools, is called the blazing 
star, is the sign of intellectual omnipotence and autocracy. 
It is the star of the magi; it is the sign of the Word made 
flesh; and, according to the direction of its points, this 
absolute magical symbol represents order or confusion, the 
divine lamb of Ormuz and St John, or the accursed goat of 
Mendes. It is initiation or profanation; it is Lucifer or 
Vesper, the star of the morning or the evening. It is Mary 
or Lilith, victory or death, day or night. The pentagram 
with two points in the ascendant represents Satan as the 
goat of the Sabbath; when one point is in the ascendant, it 
is the sign of the Saviour. The pentagram is the figure of 
the human body, having the four limbs, and a single point 
representing the head. A human figure, head downwards, 
naturally represents a demon; that is, intellectual subver¬ 
sion, disorder, or madness. Now, if magic be a reality, if 
occult science be really the true law of the three worlds, 
this absolute sign, this sign ancient as history, and more 
ancient, should and does actually exercise an incalculable 
influence upon spirits set free from their material envelope. 

The sign of the pentagram is called also the sign of the 
microcosm, and it represents what the Kabbalists of the 
book of Zohar term the microprosopus. The complete com¬ 
prehension of the pentagram is the key of the two worlds. 
It is the absolute philosophy and natural science. The 
sign of the pentagram should be composed of the seven 
metals, or at least traced in pure gold upon white marble. 


232 


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It may also be drawn with vermilion upon an unblemished 
lambskin—the symbol of integrity and light. The marble 
should be virgin, that is, should never have been used for 
another purpose; the lambskin should be prepared under 
the auspices of the sun. The lamb must have been slain at 
Paschal time, with a new knife, and the skin must be salted 
with salt consecrated by magical operations. The omis¬ 
sion of even one of these difficult and apparently arbitrary 
ceremonies makes void the entire success of the great works 
of science. 

The pentagram is consecrated with the four elements; 
the magical figure is breathed on five times; it is sprinkled 
with consecrated water; it is dried by the smoke of five 
perfumes, namely, incense, myrrh, aloes, sulphur, and 
camphor, to which a little white resin and ambergris may 
be added. The five breathings are accompanied by the 
utterance of the names attributed to the five genii, who are 
Gabriel, Raphael, Anael, Samael, and Oriphiel; afterwards 
the pentacle is placed successively at the north, south, east, 
w T est, and centre of the astronomical cross, pronouncing at 
the same time, one after another, the letters of the sacred 
tetragram, and then, in an undertone, the blessed names of 
Aleph and the mysterious Thau, united in the Kabbalistic 
name of Azoth. 

The pentagram should be placed upon the altar of per¬ 
fumes, and under the tripod of evocations. The operator 
should also wear the sign as well as that of the macrocosm, 
which is composed of two crossed and superposed triangles. 
When a spirit of light is evoked, the head of the star—that 
is, one of its points—should be directed towards the tripod 
of evocations, and the two inferior points towards the altar 
of perfumes. In the case of a spirit of darkness, the 
opposite course is pursued, but then the operator must be 
careful to set the end of the rod or the point of the sword 
upon the head of the pentagram. We have already said 
that signs are the active voice of the verb of will. Now, 
the word of will must be given in its completeness, so that 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


233 


it may be transformed into action; and a single negligence, 
representing an idle speech or a doubt, falsifies and para¬ 
lyses the whole operation, turning back upon the operator 
all the forces thus expended in vain. We must, therefore, 
absolutely abstain from magical ceremonies or scrupulously 
and exactly fulfil them all. 

The pentagram, engraved in luminous lines upon glass by 
the electrical machine, also exercises a great influence upon 
spirits, and terrifies phantoms. The old magicians traced 
the sign of the pentagram upon their door-steps, to prevent 
evil spirits from entering and good spirits from departing. 
This constraint followed from the direction of the points of 
the star. Two points on the outer side drove away the 
evil; two points on the inner side imprisoned them; one 
only on the inner side held good spirits captive. All these 
magical theories, based upon the one dogma of Hermes and 
on the analogical deductions of science, have been invariably 
confirmed by the visions of ecstatics and by the convulsions 
of cataleptics saying that they are possessed with spirits. 
The G which Freemasons place in the middle of the blazing 
star signifies Gnosis and Generation, the two sacred words 
of the ancient Kabbalah. It signifies also Grand Archi¬ 
tect, for the pentagram on every side represents an A. By 
placing it in such a way that two of its points are in the 
ascendant and one is below, we may see the horns, ears and 
beard of the hierarchic goat of Mendes, when it becomes the 
sign of infernal evocations. 

The allegorical star of the magi is no other than the 
mysterious pentagram; and those three kings, sons of 
Zoroaster, conducted by the blazing star to the cradle of 
the microcosmic God, are enough in themselves to demon¬ 
strate the wholly kabbalistic and truly magical beginnings 
of Christian doctrine. One of these kings is white, another 
black, and the third brown. The white king offers gold, 
symbol of light and life; the black king presents myrrh, 
image of death and of darkness; the brown king sacrifices 
incense, emblem of the conciliating doctrine of the two 


234 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


principles. Then they return into their own land by an¬ 
other road, to show that a new cultus is only a new path, 
conducting man to the one religion, that of the sacred triad 
and the radiant pentagram, the sole eternal Catholicism . 
St John, in the Apocalypse, beholds this same star fall from 
heaven to earth. It is then called absynth or wormwood, 
and all the waters of the sea become bitter—striking image 
of the materialisation of dogma, which produces fanaticism 
and the acridities of controversy. Then unto Christianity 
itself may be applied those words of Isaiah: 4 ‘How hast 
thou fallen from heaven, bright star, which wast so 
splendid in thy prime! ’ ’ But the pentagram, profaned 
by men, burns ever unclouded in the right hand of the 
Word of Truth, and the inspired voice promises to him that 


1 2 



overcometh the possession of the morning star—solemn 
restitution held out to the star of Lucifer. 

As will be seen, all mysteries of magic, all symbols of the 
gnosis, all figures of occultism, all kabbalistic keys of 
prophecy, are summed up in the sign of the pentagram, 
which Paracelsus proclaims to be the greatest and most 
potent of all signs. Is there any cause now for astonish- 







TRxiNSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


235 


ment at the conviction of the magus as to the real influence 
exercised by this sign over the spirits of all hierarchies? 
Those who defy the sign of the cross tremble before the star 
of the microcosm. On the contrary, when he is conscious 
of failing will, the magus turns his eyes towards this symbol, 
takes it in his right hand, and feels armed with intellectual 
omnipotence, provided that he is truly a king, worthy to be 
conducted by the star to the cradle of divine realisation; 
provided that he knows, dares, wills, and keeps silent; pro¬ 
vided that he is familiar with the usages of the pantacle, the 
cup, the wand, and the sword; provided, finally, that the 
intrepid gaze of his; soul corresponds to those two eyes 
which the ascending point of our pentagram ever presents 
open. 


236 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE MEDIUM AND MEDIATOR. 

Two things, as we have already said, are necessary for the 
acquisition of magical power—the emancipation of the will 
from all servitude, and its instruction in the art of domina¬ 
tion. The sovereign will is represented in our symbols by 
the woman who crushes the serpent’s head, and by the 
radiant angel who restrains and constrains the dragon with 
lance and heel. In this place let us affirm without evasions 
that the great magical agent—the dual current of light, the 
living and astral fire of the earth—was represented by the 
serpent with the head of an ox, goat, or dog, in ancient 
theogonies. It is the double serpent of the caduceus, the 
old serpent of Genesis, but it is also the brazen serpent 
of Moses, twisted round the tau, that is, the generating 
lingam. It is, further, the goat of the Sabbath and the 
Baphomet of the Templars; it is the Hyle of the Gnostics; 
it is the double tail of the serpent which forms the legs of 
the solar cock of Abraxas. In fine, it is the devil of 
M. Eudes de Mirville, and is really the blind force which 
souls must overcome if they would be free from the chains 
of earth; for, unless their will can detach them from this 
fatal attraction, they will be absorbed in the current by the 
force which produced them, and will return to the central 
and eternal fire. The whole magical work consists, there¬ 
fore, in our liberation from the folds of the ancient serpent, 
then in setting a foot upon its head, and leading it where 
we will. “I will give thee all the kingdoms of the earth, 
if thou wilt fall down and adore me,” said this serpent in 
the evangelical mythos. The initiate should make answer: 
“I will not fall down, and thou shalt crouch at my feet; 
nothing shalt thou give me, but I will make use of thee, and 
will take what I require, for I am thy lord and master”— 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


237 


a reply which, in a veiled manner, is contained in that of 
the Saviour. 

We have already said that the devil is not a person. It 
is a misdirected force, as its name indicates. An odic or 
magnetic current, formed by a chain of perverse wills, con¬ 
stitutes this evil spirit, which the Gospel calls legion, and 
this it is which precipitated the swine into the sea—another 
allegory of the attraction exercised on beings of inferior in¬ 
stincts by the blind forces that can be put in operation by 
error and evil will. This symbol may be compared with 
that of the comrades of Ulysses transformed into swine by 
the sorceress Circe. Remark what was done by Ulysses to 
preserve himself and deliver his associates: he refused the 
cup of the enchantress, and commanded her with the sword. 
Circe is nature, with all her delights and allurements—to 
enjoy her we must overcome her. Such is the significance 
of the Homeric fable, for the poems of Homer, the true 
sacred books of ancient Hellas, contain all the mysteries of 
high oriental initiation. 

The natural medium is, therefore, the serpent, ever active 
and ever seducing, of idle wills, which we must continually 
withstand by their subjugation. Amorous, gluttonous, pas¬ 
sionate, or idle magicians are impossible monstrosities. The 
magus thinks and wills; he loves nothing with desire; he 
rejects nothing in rage. The word passion signifies a pas¬ 
sive state, and the magus is invariably active, invariably 
victorious. The attainment of this realisation is the crucial 
difficulty of the transcendent sciences; so when the magus 
accomplishes his own creation, the great work is fulfilled, at 
least as concerns cause and instrument. The great agent or 
natural mediator of human omnipotence cannot be overcome 
or directed save by an extra-natural mediator, which is an 
emancipated 'wall. Archimedes postulated a fulcrum outside 
the world in order to raise the world. The fulcrum of the 
magus is the intellectual cubic stone, the philosophical stone 
of Azoth —that is, the doctrine of aboslute reason and 
universal harmonies by the sympathy of contraries. 


238 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


One of our most fertile writers, and one of those who are 
the least fixed in their ideas, M. Eugene Sue, has founded a 
vast romance-epic upon an individuality whom he strives to 
render odious, who becomes interesting against the will of 
the novelist, so abundantly does he gift him with patience, 
audacity, intelligence, and genius. We are in the presence 
of a kind of Sixtus V.—poor, temperate, passionless, hold¬ 
ing the entire world entangled in the web of his skilful com¬ 
binations. This man excites at will the passions of his ene¬ 
mies, destroys them by means of one another, invariably 
reaches the point he has kept in view, and this without noise, 
without ostentation, and without imposture. His object is 
to free the world of a society which the author of the book 
believes to be dangerous and malignant, and to attain it no 
cost is too great; he is ill lodged, ill clothed, nourished like 
the refuse of humanity, but ever fixed upon his work. Con¬ 
sistently with his intention, the author depicts him as 
wretched, filthy, hideous, repulsive to the touch, and hor¬ 
rible to the sight. But supposing this very exterior is a 
means of disguising the enterprise, and so of more surely 
attaining it, is it not proof positive of sublime courage? 
When Rodin becomes pope, do you think that he will still be 
ill clothed and dirty? Hence M. Eugene Sue has missed his 
point; his object was to deride superstition and fanaticism, 
but what he attacks is intelligence, strength, genius, the most 
signal human virtues. Were there many Rodins among the 
Jesuits, were there one even, I would not give much for the 
success of the opposite party, in spite of the brilliant and 
maladroit special pleadings of its illustrious advocates. 

To will well, to will long, to will always, but never to 
lust after anything, such is the secret of power, and this 
is the magical arcanum which Tasso brings forward in 
the persons of the two knights who come to deliver Rinaldo 
and to destroy the enchantments of Armida. They with¬ 
stand equally the most charming nymphs and the most 
terrible wild beasts. They remain without desires and 
without fear, and hence they attain their end. Does it 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


239 


follow from this that a true magician inspires more fear 
than love? I do not deny it, and while abundantly recog¬ 
nising how sweet are the allurements of life, while doing 
full justice to the gracious genius of Anacreon, and to all 
youthful efflorescence of the poetry of love, I seriously in¬ 
vite the estimable votaries of pleasure to regard the trans¬ 
cendental sciences merely as a matter of curiosity, and 
never to approach the magical tripod; the great works of 
science are deadly for pleasure. 

The man who has escaped from the chain of instincts 
will first of all realise his omnipotence by the submissive¬ 
ness of animals. The history of Daniel in the lions’ den is 
no fable, and more than once, during the persecutions of 
infant Christianity this phenomenon recurred in the pres¬ 
ence of the whole Roman people. A man seldom has any¬ 
thing to fear from an animal of which he is not afraid. 
The bullets of Jules Gerard, the lion-killer, are magical and 
intelligent. Once only did he run a real danger; he allowed 
a timid companion to accompany him, and, looking upon 
this imprudent person as lost beforehand, he also was afraid, 
not for himself but for his comrade. Many persons will say 
that it is difficult and even impossible to attain such resolu¬ 
tion, that strength in volition and energy in character, are 
natural gifts. I do not dispute it, but I would point out 
also that habit can reform nature; volition can be per¬ 
fected by education, and, as I have before said, all magical, 
like all religious, ceremonial has no other end but thus to 
test, exercise, and habituate the will by perseverance and by 
force. The more difficult and laborious the exercises, the 
greater their effect, as we have now advanced far enough 
to see. 

If it have been hitherto impossible to direct the phe¬ 
nomena of magnetism, it is because an initiated and truly 
emancipated operator has not yet appeared. Who can 
boast that he is such ? Have we not ever new self-conquests 
to make? At the same time, it is certain that nature will 
obey the sign and the word of one who feels himself strong 


240 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


enough to be convinced of it. 1 say that nature will obey; 
I do not say that she will bely herself or disturb the order 
of her possibilities. The healing of nervous diseases by 
word, breath, or contact; resurrection in certain cases; re¬ 
sistance of evil wills sufficient to disarm and confound mur¬ 
derers; even the faculty of making one’s self invisible by 
troubling the sight of those whom it is important to elude; 
all this is a natural effect of projecting or withdrawing: the 
astral light. Thus was Valentius dazzled and terror-struck 
on entering the temple of Cesarea, even as Heliodorus of old, 
overcome by a sudden madness in the temple of Jerusalem, 
believed himself scourged and trampled by angels. Thus 
also the Admiral de Coligny imposed respect on his assassins, 
and could onty be despatched by a madman who fell upon 
him with averted head. What rendered Joan of Arc in¬ 
variably victorious was the fascination of her faith and the 
miracle of her audacity; she paralysed the arms of those 
who would have assailed her, and the English may have very 
well been sincere in regarding her as a witch or a sorceress. 
As a fact, she was a sorceress unconsciously, herself believ¬ 
ing that she acted supernaturally, while she was really dis¬ 
posing of an occult force w T hich is universal and invariably 
governed by the same laws. 

The magus-magnetiser should have command of the 
natural medium, and, consequently, of the astral body by 
which our soul communicates with our organs. He can say 
to the material body, ‘ ‘ Sleep! ’ ’ and to the sidereal body, 
‘ ‘ Dream! ’ ’ Thereupon, the aspect of visible things changes, 
as in haschish-visions. Cagliostro is said to have possessed 
this power, and he increased its action by means of fumiga¬ 
tions and perfumes; but true magnetic ability should tran¬ 
scend these auxiliaries, all more or less inimical to reason 
and destructive of health. M. Ragon, in his learned work 
on Occult Masonry, gives the recipe for a series of medica¬ 
ments suitable for the exaltation of somnambulism. It is 
by no means a* knowledge to be despised, but prudent 
magists should avoid its practice. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


241 


The astral light is projected by glance, by voice, and by 
the thumb and palm of the hand. Music is a potent 
auxiliary of the voice, and hence comes the word enchant¬ 
ment. No musical instrument has more enchantment than 
the human voice, but the far away notes of a violin or 
harmonica may augment its power. The subject whom it is 
proposed to overcome is in this way prepared; then, when 
he is half-deadened and, as it were, enveloped by the charm, 
the hands should be extended towards him, he should be 
commanded to sleep or to see, and he will obey despite 
himself. Should he resist, a fixed glance must be directed 
towards him, one thumb must be placed between his eyes 
and the other on his breast, touching him lightly with a 
single and swift contact; the breath must be slowly drawn 
in and again breathed gently and warmly forth, repeating 
in a low voice, ‘ ‘ Sleep ! ” or ‘ ‘ See! ’ ’ 


242 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE SEPTENARY OF TALISMANS. 

Ceremonies, vestments, perfumes, characters and figures, 
being, as we have stated, necessary to enlist the imagination 
in the education of the will, the success of magical works 
depends upon the faithful observation of all the rites, which 
are in no sense fantastic or arbitrary, having been trans¬ 
mitted to us by antiquity, and permanently subsisting by 
the essential laws of analogical realisation and of the cor¬ 
respondence which inevitably connects ideas and forms. 
Having spent many years in consulting and comparing all 
the most authentic grimoires and magical rituals, we have 
succeeded, not without labour, in reconstituting the cere¬ 
monial of universal and primeval magic. The only serious 
books which we have seen upon this subject are in manu¬ 
script, written in conventional characters which we have 
deciphered by the help of the polygraphy of Trithemius. 
The importance of others consists wholly in the hieroglyphs 
and symbols which adorn them, the truth of the images being 
disguised under the superstitious fictions of a mystifying 
text. Such, for example, is the “Enchiridion” of Pope Leo 
III., which has never been printed with its true figures, and 
we have reconstructed it for our own use after an ancient 
manuscript. The rituals known under the name of the 
“Clavicles of Solomon” are very numerous. Many have 
been printed, while others remain in manuscripts, tran¬ 
scribed with great care. An exceedingly fine and elegantly 
written example is preserved in the Imperial Library; it is 
enriched with pantacles and characters most of which have 
been reproduced in the magical calendars of Tycho-Brahe 
and Duchentau. Lastly, there are printed clavicles and 
grimoires which are catch-penny mystifications and impos¬ 
tures of dishonest publishers. The book so notorious and 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


243 


decried formerly under the name of * ‘ Little Albert ’ ’ belongs 
mainly to the latter category; some talismanic figures, and 
some calculations borrowed from Paracelsus, are its only 
serious parts. 

In any matter of realisation and ritual, Paracelsus is an 
imposing magical authority. No one has accomplished 
works greater than his, and for that very reason he conceals 
the virtue of ceremonies and merely teaches in his occult 
philosophy the existence of the magnetic agent of the om¬ 
nipotence of will; he also sums the whole science of char¬ 
acters in two signs, the macrocosmic and microcosmic stars. 
It w r as sufficient for the adepts, and it was important not to 
initiate the vulgar. Paracelsus, therefore, did not teach the 
ritual, but he practised, and his practice was a sequence of 
miracles. 

We have spoken of the magical importance of the triad 
and tetrad. Their combination constitutes the great re¬ 
ligious and kabbalistic number which represents the uni¬ 
versal synthesis and comprises the sacred septenary. In 
the belief of the ancients, the world is governed by seven 
secondary causes— secundcei, as Trithemius calls them— 
which are the universal forces designated by Moses under 
the plural name of Elo'im, gods. These forces, analogous 
and contrary to one another, produce equilibrium by their 
contrasts, and rule the motion of the spheres. The He¬ 
brews termed them the seven great archangles, giving them 
the names of Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Anael, Samael, 
Zadkiel, and Oriphiel. The Christian Gnostics named the 
four last Uriel, Barachiel, Sealtiel, and Jehudiel. Other 
nations attributed to these spirits the government of the 
seven chief planets, and gave them the names of their chief 
divinities. All believed in their relative influence; as¬ 
tronomy divided the antique heaven between them, and 
allotted the seven days of the week to their successive gov¬ 
ernment. Such is the reason of the various ceremonies of 
the magical week and the septenary cultus of the planets. 
We have already observed that here the planets are signs 


244 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


and nothing else; they have the influence which universal 
faith attributes because they are more truly the stars of the 
human mind than the orbs of heaven. The sun, which 
antique magic always regarded as fixed, could only be a 
planet for the vulgar; hence it represents the day of repose 
in the week, which we term Sunday without knowing why, 
the day of the sun among the ancients. 

The seven magical planets correspond to the seven colours 
of the prism and the seven notes of the musical octave; 
they represent also the seven virtues, and, by opposition, 
the seven vices of Christian ethics. The seven sacraments 
correspond equally to this great universal septenary. Bap¬ 
tism, which consecrates the element of water, corresponds 
to the moon; ascetic penance is under the auspices of 
Samael, the angel of Mars; confirmation, which imparts the 
spirit of understanding and communicates to the true be¬ 
liever the gift of tongues, is under the auspices of Raphael, 
the angel of Mercury; the Eucharist substitutes the sacra¬ 
mental realisation of God made man for the empire of 
Jupiter; marriage is consecrated by the angel Anael, the 
purifying genius of Venus; extreme unction is the safe¬ 
guard of the sick about to fall under the scythe of Saturn, 
and orders, consecrating the priesthood of light, is marked, 
more especially by the characters of the sun. Almost all 
these analogies were observed by the learned Dupuis, who 
thence concluded that all religions were false, instead of 
recognising the sanctity and perpetuity of a single dogma, 
ever reproduced in the universal symbolism of successive 
religious forms. He failed to understand the permanent 
revelation transmitted to human genius by the harmonies of 
nature, and beheld only a catalogue of errors in that chain 
of ingenious images and eternal truths. 

Magical works are also seven in number: 1, works of 
light and riches, under the auspices of the sun; 2, works of 
divination and mystery, under the invocation of the moon; 
3, works of skill, science, and eloquence, under the protec¬ 
tion of Mercury; 4, works of wrath and chastisement, con- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


245 


secrated to Mars; 5, works of love, favoured by Venus; 
6, works of ambition and intrigue, under the auspices of 
Jupiter; 7, works of malediction and death, under the 
patronage of Saturn. In theological symbolism, the sun 
represents the word of truth; the moon, religion itself; 
Mercury, the interpretation and science of mysteries; Mars, 
justice; Venus, mercy and love; Jupiter, the risen and 
glorious Saviour; Saturn, God the Father, or the Jehovah 
of Moses. In the human body, the sun is analogous to the 
heart, the moon to the brain, Jupiter to the right hand, 
Saturn to the left, Mars to the left foot, Venus to the right, 
Mercury r to the generative organs, whence an androgyne 
figure is sometimes attributed to this planet. In the human 
face, the sun governs the forehead, Jupiter the right and 
Saturn the left eye; the moon rules between both at the 
root of the nose, the two phlanges of which are governed 
by Mars and Venus; finally, the influence of Mercury is 
exercised on mouth and chin. Among the ancients these 
notions constituted the occult science of physiognomy, after¬ 
wards imperfectly recovered by Lavater. 

The magus who intends undertaking the works of light 
must operate on a Sunday, from midnight to eight in the 
morning, or from three in the afternoon to ten in the 
evening. He should wear a purple vestment, with tiara 
and bracelets of gold. The altar of perfumes and the tripod 
of sacred fire must be encircled by wreaths of laurel, helio¬ 
trope, and sunflowers; the perfumes are cinnamon, strong 
incense, saffron, and red sandal; the ring must be of gold, 
with a chrysolith or ruby; the carpet must be of lion skins, 
the fans of sparrow-hawk feathers. On Monday the robe is 
white, embroidered with silver, and having a triple collar of 
pearls, crystals, and selenite; the tiara must be covered with 
yellow silk, emblazoned with silver characters forming the 
Hebrew monogram of Gabriel, as given in the “Occult 
Philosophy’’ of Agrippa; the perfumes are white sandal, 
camphor, amber, aloes, and pulverised seed of cucumber; 
the wreaths are mugwort, moonwort, and yellow ranun* 


246 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


culuses. Tapestries, garments, and objects of a black colour 
must be avoided; and no metal except silver should be worn 
on the person. On Tuesday, a day for the operations of 
vengeance, the colour of the vestment should be that of 
flame, rust, or blood, with belt and bracelets of steel. The 
tiara must be bound with gold; the rod must not be used, 
but only the magical dagger and sword; the wreaths must 
be of absynth and rue, the ring of steel, with an amethyst 
for precious stone. On Wednesday, a day favourable for 
transcendent science, the vestment should be green, or shot 
with various colours, the necklace of pearls in hollow glass 
beads containing mercury, the perfumes benzoin, mace, and 
storax, the flowers, narcissus, lily, herb mercury, fumitory, 
and marjolane; the jewel should be the agate. On Thurs¬ 
day, a day of great religious and political operations, the 
vestment should be scarlet, and on the forehead should be 
worn a brass tablet with the character of the spirit of 
Jupiter and the three words: Giarar, Bethor, Samgabiel; 
the perfumes are incense, ambergris, balm, grain of para¬ 
dise, macis, and saffron; the ring must be enriched with 
an emerald or sapphire; the wreaths and crowns should be 
oak, poplar, fig and pomegranate leaves. On Friday, the 
day for amorous operations, the vestment should be of sky 
blue, the hangings of green and rose, the ornaments of 
polished copper, the crowns of violets, the wreaths of roses, 
myrtle, and olive; the ring should be enriched with a tur- 
clasps; the fans must be of swan’s feathers, and the op- 
quoise; lapis-lazuli and beryl will answer for tiara and 
erator must wear upon his breast a copper talisman with 
the character of Anael and the words: Aveeva Yadelilith. 
On Saturday, a day of funeral operations, the vestment 
must be black or brown, with characters embroidered in 
black or orange coloured silk; on the neck must be worn a 
leaden medal with the character of Saturn and the words: 
Almalec, Aphiel, Zarahiel ; the perfumes should be dia- 
gridrium, scammony, alum, sulphur, and assafoetida; the 
ring should be adorned with an onyx, the garlands should 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


247 


be of ash, cypress, and hellebore; on the onyx of the ring, 
during the hours of Saturn, the double head of Janus 
should be engraved with the consecrated awl. 

Such are the antique magnificences of the secret cultus 
of the magi. With similar appointments the great magi¬ 
cians of the Middle Ages proceeded to the daily consecra¬ 
tion of talismans corresponding to the seven genii. We 
have already said that a pantacle is a synthetic character 
resuming the entire magical doctrine in one of its special 
conceptions. It is, therefore, the full expression of a com¬ 
pleted thought and will; it is the signature of a spirit. 
The ceremonial consecration of this sign attaches to it still 
more strongly the intention of the operator, and establishes 
a veritable magnetic chain between himself and the 
pantacle. Pantacles may be indifferently traced upon vir¬ 
gin parchment, paper, or metals. What is termed a talis¬ 
man is a sheet of metal, bearing either pantacles or char¬ 
acters, and having received a special consecration for a de¬ 
fined intention. In a learned work on magical antiquities, 
Gaffarel has scientifically demonstrated the real power of 
talismans, and the confidence in their virtue is otherwise so 
strong in nature that we gladly bear about us some memor¬ 
ial of those we love, persuaded that such keepsakes will pre¬ 
serve us from danger and increase our happiness. Talis¬ 
mans are made of the seven Kabbalistic metals, and, when 
the days and hours are favourable, the required and de¬ 
termined signs are engraved upon them. The figures of the 
seven planets, with their magical squares, following Para¬ 
celsus, are found in the “Little Albert.” It should be ob¬ 
served that Paracelsus replaces the figure of Jupiter by 
that of a priest, a substitution not wanting in a well-defined 
mysterious intention. But the allegorical and mythological 
figures of the seven spirits have now become too classical 
and too vulgar to be any longer successfully engraved on 
talismans; we must recur to more learned and expressive 
signs. The pentagram should be invariably engraved upon 
one side of the talisman, with a circle for the sun, a cres- 


248 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


cent for the moon, for Mars a sword, a G for Venus, for 
Jupiter a crown, and a scythe for Saturn. The other side 
must bear the sign of Solomon, that is, the six-pointed star 
composed of two superposed triangles; in the centre there 
is placed a human figure for the talismans of the sun, a 
chalice for those of the moon, a dog’s head for those of Mer¬ 
cury, an eagle’s for those of Jupiter, a lion’s head for 
those of Mars, a dove’s for those of Venus, and a bull’s or 
goat’s for those of Saturn. The names of the seven angels 
are added either in Hebrew, in Arabic, or in magical char¬ 
acters like those of the alphabet of Trithemius. The two 
triangles of Solomon may be replaced by the double cross 
of the wheels of Ezekiel, which is found on a great number 
of ancient pantacles, and is, as we have observed in our 
Doctrine, the key to the trigrammes of Fohi. 

Precious stones may also be employed for amulets and 
talismans; but all objects of this nature, whether metals or 
gems, must be carefully kept in silken bags of a colour 
analogous to that of the spirit of the planet, perfumed with 
the perfumes of the corresponding day, and preserved from 
all impure glances and contacts. Thus, pantacles and talis¬ 
mans of the sun must not be seen or touched by deformed 
or misshapen persons, or by immoral women; those of the 
moon are profaned by the looks and hands of debauched 
men and menstruating females; those of Mercury lose their 
virtue if seen or touched by paid priests; those of Mars 
must be concealed from cowards; those of Venus from 
depraved men and men under a vow of celibacy; those of 
Jupiter from the impious; those of Saturn from virgins and 
children, not that their looks or touches can ever be im¬ 
pure, but because the talisman would bring them misfortune 
and thus lose all its virtue. 

Crosses of honour and other kindred decorations are ver¬ 
itable talismans, which increase personal value and merit; 
they are consecrated by solemn investiture, and public 
opinion can impart to them a prodigious power. Sufficient 
attention has not been paid to the reciprocal influence of 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


249 


signs on ideas and of ideas on signs; it is not less true that 
the revolutionary work of modem times, for example, has 
been symbolically resumed in its entirety by the Napo¬ 
leonic substitution of the Star of Honour for the Cross of 
St. Louis. It is the pentagram in place of the labarum, it 
is the reconstitution of the symbol of light, it is the Ma¬ 
sonic resurrection of Adonhiram. They say that Napoleon 
believed in his star, and could he have been persuaded to 
explain what he meant by this star, it would have proved 
to be his genius; he would therefore have adopted the pen¬ 
tagram for his sign, that symbol of human sovereignty by 
intelligent initiative. The mighty soldier of the Revolution 
knew little, but he divined almost everything; so was he 
the greatest instinctive and practical magician of modern 
times: the world is still full of his miracles, and the country 
people will never believe that he is dead. 

Blessed and indulgenced objects, touched by holy images 
or venerable persons; chaplets from Palestine; the Agnus 
Dei , composed of the wax of the Paschal candle, and the 
annual remnants of holy chrism; scapulas and medals, are 
all true talismans. One such medal has become popular 
in our own day, and even those who are devoid of religion 
suspend it from the necks of their children. Moreover, its 
figures are so perfectly Kabbalistic that it is truely a mar¬ 
vellous double pantacle. On the one side is the great initia- 
trix, the heavenly mother of the Zohar, the Isis of Egypt, 
the Venus-Urania of the Platonists, the Mary of Christian¬ 
ity, throned upon the world, and setting one foot upon the 
head of the magical serpent. She extends her two hands 
in such a manner as to form a triangle, of which her head 
is the apex; her hands are open and radiant, thus making 
a double triangle, with all the beams directed towards the 
earth, evidently representing the emancipation of intelli¬ 
gence by labour. On the other side is the double Tau of the 
hierophants, the Lingam with the double Cteis, or the triple 
Phallus, supported, with interlacement and repeated in¬ 
sertion, by the kabbalistic and masonic M, representing the 


250 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


square between the two pillars Jakin and Bohas; below 
are placed, upon the same plane, two loving and suffering 
hearts, with twelve pentagrams around them. Every one 
will tell you that the wearers of this medal do not attach 
such significance to it, but it is only on that account more 
absolutely magical; having a double sense, and, conse¬ 
quently, a double virtue. The ecstatic on the authority of 
whose revelations this talisman was engraved, had already 
beheld it existing perfectly in the astral light, which once 
more demonstates the intimate connection of ideas and 
signs, and gives a new sanction to the symbolism of uni¬ 
versal magic. 

The greater the importance and solemnity brought to 
bear on the confection and consecration of talismans and 
pentacles, the more virtue they acquire, as will be under¬ 
stood upon the evidence of the principles which we have 
established. This consecration should take place on the 
days we have indicated, with the appointments which we 
have given in detail. Talismans are consecrated by the four 
exorcised elements, after conjuring the spirits of darkness 
by the Conjuration of the Four. Then, taking up the pan- 
tacle, and sprinkling it with some drops of magical water, 
say: In the name of Elohim and by the spirit of the living 
waters, be thou unto me a sign of light and a sacrament of 
will! 

Presenting it to the smoke of the perfumes: By the 
brazen serpent which destroyed the serpents of fire, be 
thou, &c. 

Breathing seven times upon the pantacle or talisman: 
By the firmament and spirit of the voice, be thou, &c. 

Lastly, placing some particles of purified earth or salt 
triadwise upon it: In the salt of earth, and by the virtue 
of eternal life, be thou, &c. 

Then recite the Conjuration of the Seven as follows, al¬ 
ternately casting a pastille of the seven perfumes into the 
sacred fire: 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


251 


In the name of Michael, may Jehovah command thee, 
and drive thee hence, Chavajoth! 

In the name of Raphael, begone before Elchim, Sachabiel! 
drive thee hence, Belial! 

In the name of Raphael, begone before Elchin, Sachabiel! 

By Samael Zebaoth, and in the name of Eloim Gibor, 
get thee hence, Adrameleck! 

By Zachariel and Sachiel-Meleck, be obedient nnto 

9 7 

Elvah, Samgabiel! 

By the divine and human name of Schadda’i, and by the 
sign of the pentagram which I hold in my right hand, in 
the name of the angel Anael, by the power of Adam and of 
Heva, who are Jotchavah, begone, Lilith! Let us rest in 
peace, Nahemah! 

By the holy Eloim and by the names of the genii Cashiel 
Sehaltiel, Aphiel, and Zarahiel, at the command of Orifiel, 
depart from us, Moloch! We deny thee our children to 
devour. 

The most important magical instruments are the rod, the 
sword, the lamp, the chalice, the altar, and the tripod. In 
the operations of transsendent and divine magic, the lamp, 
rod, and chalice are used; in the works of black magic, the 
rod is replaced by the sword and the lamp by the candle of 
Cardan. We shall explain this difference in the chapter 
devoted to black magic. Let us come now to the descrip¬ 
tion and consecration of the instruments. The magical rod, 
which must not be confounded with the simple divining 
rod, with the fork of necromancers, or the trident of Para¬ 
celsus, the true and absolute magical rod, must be one per¬ 
fectly straight beam of almond or hazel, cut at a single 
blow with the magical pruning-knife or golden sickle, be¬ 
fore the rising of the sun, at that moment when the tree is 
ready to blossom. It must be pierced through its whole 
length without splitting or breaking it, and a long needle of 
magnetized iron must fill its entire extent; to one of its 
extremities must be fitted a polyhedral prism, cut in a 
triangular shape, and to the other a similar figure of black 


252 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 



Magical Instruments. 


Lamp, rod, sword, and dagger. 











































TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


253 


resin. Two rings, one of copper, and one of zinc, must be 
placed at the centre of the rod; subsequently, the rod must 
be gilt at the resin end, and silvered at the prism end as 
far as the ringed centre; it must then be covered with silk, 
the extremities not included. On the copper ring these 
characters must be engraved: and on the 

zinc ring: The consecration of the rod must 

last seven days, beginning at the new moon, and should be 
made by an initiate possessing the great arcana, and having 
himself a consecrated rod. This is the transmission of the 
magical secret, which has never ceased since the shrouded 
origin of the transcendent science. The rod and the other 
instruments, but the rod above all, must be concealed with 
care, and under no pretext should the magus permit them 
to be seen or touched by the profane; otherwise they will 
lose all their virtue. The mode of transmitting the rod is 
one of the arcana of science, the revelation of which is never 
permitted. The length of the magical rod must not exceed 
that of the operator’s arm; the magician must never use it 
unless he is alone, and should not even then touch it with¬ 
out necessity. Many ancient magi made it only the length 
of the forearm and concealed it beneath their long mantles, 
showing only the simple divining rod in public, or some 
allegorical sceptre made of ivory or ebony, according to the 
nature of the works. Cardinal Richelieu, always athirst 
for power, sought through his whole life the transmission 
of the rod, without being able to find it. His Kabbalist 
Gaffarel could furnish him with sword and talismans alone; 
this was possibly the secret motive for the cardinal’s hatred 
of Urbain Grandier, who knew something of his weak¬ 
nesses. The secret and prolonged conversations of Lau- 
bardement with the unhappy priest some hours before his 
final torture, and those words of a friend and confidant of 
the latter, as he went forth to death — 1 ‘You are a clever 
man, monsieur, do not destroy yourself”—afford consider¬ 
able food for thought. 

The magical rod is the verendum of the magus; it must 


254 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


not even be mentioned in any clear and precise manner; 
no one should boast of its possession, nor should its con¬ 
secration ever be transmitted except under the conditions of 
absolute discretion and confidence. 

The sword is less occult, and is made in the following 
manner:—It must be of pure steel, with a cruciform copper 
handle having three pommels, as represented in the enchi¬ 
ridion of Leo III, or with the guard of a double crescent, as 
in our own figure. On the middle knot of the guard, which 
should be covered with a golden plate, the sign of the 
macrocosm must be chased on one side, and that of the 
microcosm on the other. The Hebrew monogram of 
Michael, as found in Agrippa, must be engraved on the 
pommel; on the one side of the blade must be these char¬ 
acters: and on the other the mono¬ 

gram of the Labarum of Constantine, followed by the 
words: Vince in hoc, Deo dnce, comite ferro. For the au¬ 
thenticity and exactitude of these figures, see the best an¬ 
cient editions of the “ Enchiridion/’ The consecration of 
the sword must take place on a Sunday, during the hours 
of the sun, under the invocation of Michael. The blade of 
the sword must be placed in a fire of laurel and cypress; it 
must then be dried and polished with ashes of the sacred 
fire, moistened with the blood of a mole or serpent, the fol¬ 
lowing words being said:—Be thou unto me as the sword of 
Michael, by virtue of Eloim Sabaoth, may spirits of dark¬ 
ness and reptiles of earth flee away from thee!—It is then 
fumigated with the perfumes of the sun, and wrapped up 
in silk, together with branches of vervain, which should be 
burned on the seventh day. 

The magical lamp must be composed of the four metals— 
gold, silver, brass and iron; the pedestal should be of iron, 
the mirror of brass, the reservoir of silver, the triangle at 
the apex of gold. It should be provided with two arms 
composed of a triple pipe of three intertwisted metals, in 
such a manner that each arm has a triple conduit for the 
oil; there must be nine wicks in all, three at the top and 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


255 


three in each arm. The seal of Hermes must be engraved 
on the pedestal, over which must be the two-headed 
androgyne of Khunrath. A serpent devouring its own tail 
must encircle the lower part. The sign of Solomon must be 
chased on the reservoir. Two globes must be fitted to this 
lamp, one adorned with transparent pictures, representing 
the seven genii, while the other, of larger size and dupli¬ 
cated, should contain variously tinted waters in four com¬ 
partments. The whole instrument should be placed in a 
wooden pillar, revolving on its own axis, and permitting a 
ray of light to escape, as required, and fall on the altar 
smoke at the moment for the invocations. This lamp is a 
great aid to the intuitive operations of slow imaginations, 
and for the immediate creation in the presence of mag¬ 
netised persons of forms alarming in their actuality, which, 
being multiplied by the mirrors, will magnify suddenly, and 
transform the operator’s cabinet into a vast hall filled with 
visible souls; the intoxication of the perfumes and the 
exaltation of the invocations will speedily change this fan¬ 
tasia into a real dream; persons formerly known will be 
recognised, phantoms will speak, and something extraor¬ 
dinary and unexpected will follow the closing of the light 
within the pillar and the increase of the fumigations. 


256 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


CHAPTER VIII 

A WARNING TO THE IMPRUDENT 

The operations of science are not devoid of danger, as we 
have stated several times. They may end in madness for 
those who are not established firmly on the basis of supreme, 
absolute, and infallible reason. Terrible and incurable dis¬ 
eases can be occasioned by excessive nervous excitement. 
Swoons and death itself, as a consequence of cerebral con¬ 
gestion, may result from imagination when it is unduly im¬ 
pressed and terrified. We cannot sufficiently dissuade ner¬ 
vous persons, and those who are naturally disposed to ex¬ 
altation, women, young people, and all who are not habitu¬ 
ated in perfect self-control and the command of their fear. 
In the same way, there can be nothing more dangerous 
than to make magic a pastime, or, as some do, a part of an 
evening’s entertainment. Even magnetic experiments, per¬ 
formed under such conditions, can only exhaust the sub¬ 
jects, mislead opinions, and defeat science. The mysteries 
of life and death cannot be made sport of with impunity, 
and things which are to be taken seriously must be treated 
not only seriously but also with the greatest reserve. Never 
yield to the desire of convincing others by phenomena. The 
most astounding phenomena would not be proofs for those 
who are not already convinced. They can always be attrib¬ 
uted to ordinary artifices and the magus included among the 
more or less skilful followers of Robert Houdin or Hamil¬ 
ton. To require prodigies as a warrant for believing in 
science is to shew one’s self unworthy or incapable 1 of 
science. Sancta Sanctis. Contemplate the twelfth figure 
of the Tarot-keys, remember the grand symbol of Prome¬ 
theus, and be silent. All those magi who divulged their 
works died violently, and many were driven to suicide, like 
Cardan, Schroppfer, Cagliostro, and others. The magus 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


257 


should live in retirement, and be approached with difficulty. 
This is the significance of the ninth key of the Tarot, where 
the initiate appears as a hermit completely shrouded in his 
cloak. Such retirement must not, however, be one of isola¬ 
tion ; attachments and friendships are necessary, but he 
must choose them with care and preserve them at all price. 
He must also have another profession than that of magi¬ 
cian ; magic is not a trade. 

In order to devotei ourselves to ceremonial magic, we 
must be free from anxious preoccupations; we must be in a 
position to procure all the instruments of the science, and 
be able to make them when needed; we must also possess an 
inaccessible laboratory, in which there will be no danger of 
ever being surprised or disturbed. Then, and this is an 
indispensable condition, we must know how to equilibrate 
forces and restrain the zeal of our initiative. This is the 
meaning of the eighth key of Hermes, wherein a woman is 
seated between two pillars, with an upright sword in one 
hand and a balance in the other. To equilibrate forces they 
must be simultaneously maintained and made to act al¬ 
ternately ; the use of the balance represents this double ac¬ 
tion. The same arcanum is typified by the dual cross in the 
pantacles of Pythagoras and Ezekiel (see the plate which 
appears on p. 166 in the “Doctrine”), where the crosses 
equilibrate each other and the planetary signs are always in 
opposition. Thus, Venus is the equilibrium of the works 
of Mars; Mercury moderates and fulfills the operations of 
the Sun and Moon; Saturn balances Jupiter. It was by 
means of this antagonism between the ancient gods that 
Prometheus, that is to say, the genius of science, contrived 
to enter Olympus and carry off fire from heaven. Is it 
necessary to speak more clearly? The milder and calmer 
you are, the more effective will be your anger; the more 
energetic you are, the more precious will be your forbear¬ 
ance ; the more skilful you are, the better will you profit by 
your intelligence and even by your virtues; the more indif¬ 
ferent you are, the more easily will you make yourself 


258 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


loved. This is a matter of experience in the moral order, 
and is literally realised in the sphere of action. Human 
passions produce blindly the opposites of their unbridled 
desire, when they act without direction. Excessive love 
produces antipathy; blind hate counteracts and scourges 
itself; vanity leads to abasement and the most cruel humilia¬ 
tions. Thus, the Great Master revealed a mystery of posi¬ 
tive magical science when He said, ‘ ‘ Forgive your enemies, 
do good to those that hate you, so shall ye heap coals of fire 
upon their heads. ” Perhaps this kind of pardon seems 
hypocrisy and bears a strong likeness to refined vengeance. 
But we must remember that the magus is sovereign, and a 
sovereign never avenges because he has the right to punish; 
in the exercise of this right he performs his duty, and is 
implacable as justice. Let it be observed, for the rest, so 
that no one may misinterpret my meaning, that it is a ques¬ 
tion of chastising evil by good and opposing mildness to 
violence. If the exercise of virtue be a flagellation for vice, 
no one has the right to demand that it should be spared, or 
that we should take pity on its shame and its sufferings. 

The man who dedicates himself to the works of science 
must take moderate daily exercise, abstain from prolonged 
vigils, and follow a wholesome and regular rule of life. He 
must avoid the effluvia of putrefaction, the neighbourhood 
of stagnant water, and indigestible or impure food. Above 
all, he must daily seek relaxation from magical preoccupa¬ 
tions amongst material cares, or in labour, whether artistic, 
industrial, or commercial. The way to see well is not to 
be always looking; and he who spends his whole life upon 
one object will end without attaining it. Another precau¬ 
tion must be equally observed, and that is never to experi¬ 
ment when ill. 

The ceremonies being, as we have said, artificial methods 
for creating a habit of will become unnecessary when the 
habit is confirmed. It is in this sense, and addressing him¬ 
self solely to perfect adepts, that Paracelsus proscribes their 
use in his Occult Philosophy. They must be progressively 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


259 


simplified before they are dispensed with altogether, and in 
proportion to the experience we obtain in acquired powers, 
and established habit in the exercise of extra-natural will. 


260 


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CHAPTER IX 

THE CEREMONIAL OF INITIATES 

The science is preserved by silence and perpetuated by 
initiation. The law of silence is not, therefore, absolute 
and inviolable, except relatively to the uninitiated multi¬ 
tude. The science can only be transmitted by speech. The 
sages must therefore speak occasionally. Yes, they must 
speak, not to disclose, but to lead others to discover. Noli 
ire, fac venire , was the device of Rabelais, who, being mas¬ 
ter of all the sciences of his time, could not be unacquainted 
with magic. We have, consequently, to reveal here the 
mysteries of initiation. The destiny of man, as we have 
said, is to make or create himself; he is, and he will be, the 
son of his works, both for time and eternity. All men are 
called on to compete, but the number of the elect—that is, 
of those who succeed—is invariably small. In other words, 
the men who are desirous to attain are numbered by mul¬ 
titudes, but the chosen are few. Now, the government of 
the world belongs by right to the flower of mankind, and 
when any combination or usurpation prevents their possess¬ 
ing it, a political or social cataclysm ensues. Men who are 
masters of themselves become easily masters of others; but 
it is possible for them to hinder one another if they dis¬ 
regard the laws of discipline and of the universal hierarchy. 
To be subject to a discipline in common, there must be a 
community of ideas and desires, and such a communion 
cannot be attained except by a common religion established 
on the very foundations of intelligence and reason. This 
religion has always existed in the world, and is that only 
which can be called one, infallible, indefectible, and ver¬ 
itably catholic—that is, universal. This religion, of which 
all others have been successively the veils and the shadows, 
is that which demonstrates being by being, truth by rea- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


261 


son, reason by evidence and common sense. It is that which 
proves by realities the reasonable basis of hypotheses, and 
forbids reasoning upon hypotheses independently of reali¬ 
ties. It is that which is grounded on the doctrine of univer¬ 
sal analogies, but never confounds the things of science with 
those of faith. It can never be of faith that two and one 
make more or less than three; that in physics the contained 
can exceed the container; that a solid body, as such, can act 
like a fluidic or gaseous body; that, for example, a human 
body can pass through a closed door without dissolution or 
opening. To say that one believes such a thing is to talk like 
a child or a fool; yet it is no less insensate to define the un¬ 
known, and to argue from hypothesis to hypothesis, till we 
come to deny evidence a priori for the affirmation of pre¬ 
cipitate suppositions. The wise man affirms what he knows, 
and believes in what he does not know only in proportion 
to the reasonable and known necessities of hypothesis. 

But this reasonable religion is unadapted for the multi¬ 
tude, for which fables, mysteries, definite hopes, and ter¬ 
rors having a physical basis, are needful. It is for this rea¬ 
son that the priesthood has been established in the world. 
Now, the priesthood is recruited by initiation. Religious 
forms perish when initiation ceases in the sanctuary, 
whether by the betrayal of the mysteries, or by their neg¬ 
lect and oblivion. The Gnostic disclosures, for example, 
alienated the Christian Church from the high truths of the 
Kabbalah, which contains all the secrets of transcendental 
theology. Hence, the blind, having become leaders of the 
blind, great obscurities, great lapses, and deplorable scan¬ 
dals have followed. Subsequently, the sacred books, of 
which the keys are all kabbalistic, from Genesis to the 
Apocalypse, have become so little intelligible to Christians, 
that pastors have reasonably judged it necessary to forbid 
their being read by the uninstructed among believers. 
Taken literally, and understood materially, these books 
would be only an inconceivable tissue of absurdities and 
scandals, as the school of Voltaire has too well demon- 


262 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


strated. It is the same with all the ancient dogmas, their 
brilliant theogonies and poetic legends. To say that the 
ancients of Greece believed in the love-adventures of Jupi¬ 
ter, or those of Egypt in the cynocephalus and sparrow- 
hawk, is to exhibit as much ignorance and bad faith as 
would be shown by maintaining that Christians adore a 
triple God, composed of an old man, an executed criminal, 
and a pigeon. The ignorance of symbols is invariably 
calumnious. For this reason we should always guard 
against the derision of that which we do not know, when its 
enunciation seems to involve some absurdity or even singu¬ 
larity, as a course no less wanting in good sense than to 
admit the same without discussion and examination. 

Prior to anything which may please or displease our¬ 
selves, there is a truth—that is to say, a reason—and by this 
reason must our actions be regulated rather than by our 
desires, if w T e would create that intelligence within us which 
is the raison d’etre of immortality, and that justice which 
is the law thereof. A man who is truly man can only will 
that which he should reasonably and justly do; so does 
he silence lusts and fears that he may hearken solely to 
reason. Now, such a man is a natural king and a spontan¬ 
eous priest for the wandering multitudes. Hence it was 
that the end of the old initiations was indifferently termed 
the sacerdotal art and the royal art. The antique magical 
associations were seminaries for priests and kings, and ad¬ 
mission could only be obtained by truly sacerdotal and 
royal works; that is, by placing one’s self above all the 
weaknesses of nature. We will not repeat here what is 
found everywhere concerning the Egyptian initiations, per¬ 
petuated, but with diminished power, in the secret societies 
of the Middle Ages. Christian radicalism, founded upon a 
false understanding of the words: “Ye have one father, 
one master, and ye are all brethren, ’ ’ dealt a terrible blow 
at the sacred hierarchy. Since that time, sacerdotal dig¬ 
nities have become a matter of intrigue or of chance; ener¬ 
getic mediocrity has managed to supplant modest superior, 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


263 


ity, misunderstood because of its modesty; yet, and not¬ 
withstanding, initiation being an essential law of religious 
life, a society which is instinctively magical formed at the 
decline of the pontifical power, and speedily concentrated 
in itself alone the entire strength of Christianity, because, 
though it only understood vaguely, it exercised positively 
the hierarchic power resident in the ordeals of initiation, 
and the omnipotence of faith in passive obedience. 

What, in fact, did the candidate in the old initiations? 
He entirely abandoned his life and liberty to the masters of 
the temples of Thebes or Memphis; he advanced resolutely 
through unnumbered terrors, which might have led him to 
imagine that there was a premeditated outrage intended 
against him; he ascended funeral pyres, swam torrents of 
black and raging water, hung by unknown counterpoises 
over unfathomed precipices . . . Was not all this a 

blind obedience in the full force of the term ? Is it not the 
most absolute exercise of liberty to abjure liberty for a time 
so that we may attain emancipation? Now, this is pre¬ 
cisely what must be done, and what has been done invari¬ 
ably, by those who aspire to the sanctum regnum of magical 
omnipotence. The disciples of Pythagoras condemned 
themselves to inexorable silence for many years; even the 
sectaries of Epicurus only comprehended the sovereignty of 
pleasure by the acquisition of sobriety and calculated tem¬ 
perance. Life is a warfare in which we must give proofs if 
we would advance; power does not surrender of itself; it 
must be seized. 

Initiation by contest and ordeal is therefore indispensable 
for the attainment of the practical science of magic. We 
have already indicated after what manner the four element¬ 
ary forms may be overcome, and will not repeat it here; 
we refer those of our readers who would inquire into the 
ceremonies of ancient initiations to the works of Baron 
Tschoudy, author of the “Blazing Star,” “Adonhiramite 
Masonry,” and some other mast valuable masonic treatises. 

Here we would insist upon a reflection, namely, that the 


264 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


intellectual and social chaos in the midst of which we are 
perishing, has been caused by the neglect of initiation, with 
its ordeals and its mysteries. Men, whose zeal was greater 
than their science, carried away by the popular maxims of 
the Gospel, came to believe in the primitive and absolute 
equality of men. A famous hallucine, the eloquent and un¬ 
fortunate Rousseau, propagated this paradox with all the 
magic of his style—that society alone depraves men—much 
as if he had said that competition and emulation in labour 
renders workmen idle. The essential law of nature, that of 
initiation by works and of voluntary and toilsome progress, 
has been fatally misconstrued; masonry has had its desert¬ 
ers, as Catholicism its apostates. What has been the con¬ 
sequence? The substitution of the steel plane for the 
intellectual and symbolical plane. To preach equality to 
what is beneath, without instructing it how to rise upward, 
is not this binding us to descend ourselves? And hence 
we have descended to the reign of the carmagnola, the sans- 
cullotes, and Marat. To restore tottering and distracted so¬ 
ciety, the hierarchy and initiation must be again estab¬ 
lished. The task is difficult, but the whole intelligent world 
feels that it is necessary to undertake it. Must we pass 
through another deluge before succeeding? We earnestly 
trust not, and this book, perhaps the greatest but not the 
last of our audacities, is an appeal unto all that is yet alive 
for the reconstitution of life in the very middle of decom¬ 
position and death. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


265 


CHAPTER X 

THE KEY OF OCCULTISM 

Let us now examine the question of pantacles, for all magi¬ 
cal virtue is there, since the secret of force is in the intel¬ 
ligence which directs. We have already given the symbol 
and interpretation of the pantacles of Pythagoras and Eze¬ 
kiel, so that we have no need to recur to these; we shall 
prove in a later chapter that all the instruments of Hebrew 
worship were pantacles, and that the first and final word of 
the Bible was written in gold and in brass by Moses, in the 
tabernacle and on all its accessories. But each magus can 
and should have his individual pantacle, for, understood ac¬ 
curately, a pantacle is the perfect summary of a mind. 
Hence we find in the magical calendars of Tycho Brahe 
and Duchentau, the pantacles of Adam, Job, Jeremiah, 
Isaiah, and of all the other great prophets who have been, 
each in his turn, the kings of the Kabbalah and the grand 
rabbins of science. 

The pantacle, being a complete and perfect synthesis, 
expressed by a single sign, serves to focus all intellectual 
strength into a glance, a recollection, a touch. It is, so to 
speak, a starting-point for the efficient projection of the 
will. Nigromancers and goetic magicians traced their in¬ 
fernal pantacles on the skin of the victims they immolated. 
The sacrificial ceremonies, the manner of skinning the kid, 
then of salting, drying, and whitening the skin, are given in 
a number of clavicles and grimoires. Some Hebrew kab- 
balists fell into similar follies, forgetting the anathemas 
pronounced in the Bible against those who sacrifice on high 
places or in the caverns of the earth. All spilling of blood 
operated ceremonially is abominable and impious, and since 
the death of Adonhiram the Society of true Adepts has a 
horror of blood —Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine. 


266 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


The initiatory symbolism of pantacles adopted through¬ 
out the east is the key of all ancient and modem mytholo¬ 
gies. Apart from the knowledge of the hieroglyphic alpha¬ 
bet, one would be lost among the obscurities of the Vedas, 
the Zend-Avesta, and the Bible. The tree which brings 
forth good and evil, the source of the four rivers, one of 
which waters the land of gold, that is, of light, and another 
flows through Ethiopia, or the kingdom of darkness; the 
magnetic serpent who seduces the woman, and the woman 
who seduces the man, thus making known the law of attrac¬ 
tion ; subsequently the Cherub or Sphinx placed at the gate 
of the Edenic sanctuary, with the fiery sword of the guar¬ 
dians of the symbol; then regeneration by labour and prop¬ 
agation by sorrow, which is the law of initiations and or¬ 
deals ; the division of Cain and Abel, which is the same sym¬ 
bol as the strife of Anteros and Eros; the ark borne upon 
the waters of the deluge like the coffer of Osiris ; the black 
raven who does not return and the white dove who does, a 
new setting forth of the dogma of antagonism and balance 
—all these magnificent kabbalistic allegories of Genesis, 
which, taken literally, and accepted as actual histories, merit 
even more derision and contempt than Voltaire heaped upon 
them, become luminous for the initiate, who still hails with 
enthusiasm and love the perpetuity of the true doctrine 
and the universality of initiation identical in all sanctuaries 
of the world. 

The five books of Moses, the prophecy of Ezekiel, and the 
Apocalypse of St. John are the three kabbalistic keys of the 
whole Biblical edifice. The sphinxes of Ezekiel are identical 
with those of the sanctuary and the ark, and are a quad¬ 
ruple reproduction of the Egyptian tetrad; the wheels re¬ 
volving in one another are the harmonious spheres of 
Pythagoras; the new temple, the plan of which is given ac¬ 
cording to wholly kabbalistic measures, is the type of the 
labours of primitive masonry. St. John, in his Apocalypse, 
reproduces the same images and the same numbers, and re¬ 
constructs the Edenic world ideally in the New Jerusalem; 


transcendental magic 


267 


but at the source of the four rivers the solar lamb replaces 
the mysterious tree. Initiation by toil and blood has been 
accomplished, and there is no more temple because the light 
of truth is universally diffused, and the world has become 
the temple of justice. This splendid final vision of the Holy 
Scriptures, this divine Utopia which the Church has re¬ 
ferred with good reason for its realisation to a better life, 
has been the pitfall of all ancient arch-heretics and of many 
modern idealists. The simultaneous emancipation and ab¬ 
solute equality of all men involve the arrest of progress and 
consequently of life; in a world where all are equal there 
could no longer be infants or the aged; birth and death 
could not therefore be admitted. This is sufficient to demon¬ 
state that the New Jerusalem is no more of this world than 
the primeval paradise, wherein there was no knowledge of 
good or evil, of liberty, of generation, or of death; the 
cycle of our religious symbolism begins and ends therefore 
in eternity. 

Dupuis and Yolney lavished their great erudition to dis¬ 
cover this relative identity of all symbols, and arrived at 
the negation of every religion. We attain by the same path 
to a diametrically opposed affirmation, and we recognise 
with admiration that there have never been any false re¬ 
ligions in the civilised world; that the divine light, the 
splendour of the supreme reason of the Logos, of that word 
which enlightens every man coming into the world, has 
been no more wanting to the children of Zoroaster than to 
the faithful sheep of St. Peter; that the permanent, the one, 
the universal revelation, is written in visible nature, ex¬ 
plained in reason, and completed by the wise analogies of 
faith; that there is, finally, but one true religion, one doc¬ 
trine, and one legitimate belief, even as there is but one 
God, one reason, and one universe; that revelation is ob¬ 
scure for no one, since the whole world understands more 
or less both truth and justice, and since all that is possible 
can only exist analogically to what is. Being is being, 

rpriK ntrs mn» 


268 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


The apparently bizarre figures presented by the Apoca¬ 
lypse of St. John are hieroglyphics, like those of all oriental 
mythologies, and can be comprised in a series of pantacles. 
The initiator, clothed in white, standing between seven 
golden candlesticks and holding seven stars in his hand, 
represents the unique doctrine of Hermes and the universal 
analogies of the light. The woman clothed with the sun 
and crowned with twelve stars is the celestial Isis, or the 
gnosis; the serpent of material life seeks to devour her 
child, but she takes unto herself the wings of the eagle and 
flies away into the desert—a protestation of the prophetic 
spirit) against the materialism of official religion. The 
mighty angel with the face of a sun, a rainbow for nimbus, 
and a cloud for vestment, having pillars of fire for his legs, 
and setting one foot upon the earth and another on the sea, 
is truly a kabbalistic Panthea. His feet represent the 
equilibrium of Briah, or the world of forms; his legs are 
the two pillars of the Masonic temple, Jakin and Bohas; 
his body, veiled by clouds, from which issues a hand holding 
a book, is the sphere of Jetzirah, or initiatory ordeals; his 
solar head, crowned with the radiant septenary, is the world 
of Atziluth, or perfect revelation; and we can only be 
excessively astonished that Hebrew kabbalists have not rec¬ 
ognised and made known this symbolism, which so closely 
and inseparably connects the highest mysteries of Chris¬ 
tianity with the secret but invariable doctrine of all the mas¬ 
ters in Israel. The beast with seven heads, in the symbolism 
of St John, is the material and antagonistic negation of the 
luminous septenary; the Babylonian harlot corresponds 
after the same manner to the woman clothed with the sun; 
the four horsemen are analogous to the four allegorical 
animals; the seven angels with their seven trumpets, seven 
cups, and seven swords characterise the absolute of the 
struggle of good against evil by speech, by religious associa¬ 
tion, and by force. Thus are the seven seals of the occult 
book successively opened, and universal initiation is accom¬ 
plished. The commentators who have sought anything else 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


269 


in this book of the transcendent Kabbalah have lost their 
time and their trouble ony to make themselves ridiculous. 
To discover Napoleon in the angel Apollyon, Luther in the 
star which falls from heaven, Voltaire or Rousseau in the 
grasshoppers armed like warriors, is merely high fantasy. 
It is the same with all the violence done to the names of 
celebrated persons so as to make them numerically equiva¬ 
lent to the fatal number 666, which we have already suf¬ 
ficiently explained; and when we think that men like Bos- 
suet and Newton amused themselves with such chimeras^ 
w r e can understand that humanity is not so malicious in its 
nature as might be supposed from the complexion of its 
vices. 


y 




270 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


CHAPTER XI 

THE TRIPLE CHAIN 

The great work in practical magic, after the education of 
the will and the personal creation of the magus, is the for¬ 
mation of the magnetic chain, and this secret is truly that 
of priesthood and of royalty. To form the magnetic chain 
is to orginate a current of ideas which produces faith and 
draws a large number of wills in a given circle of active 
manifestation. A well-formed chain is like a whirlpool 
which sucks down and absorbs all. The chain may be es¬ 
tablished in three ways—by signs, by speech, and by con¬ 
tact. The first is by inducing opinion to adopt some sign 
as the representation of a force. Thus, all Christians com¬ 
municate by the sign of the cross, masons by that of the 
square beneath the sun, the magi by that of the microcosm, 
made by extending the five fingers, etc. Once accepted and 
propagated, signs acquire force of themselves. In the early 
centuries of our era, the sight and imitation of the sign of 
the cross was enough to make proselytes to Christianity. 
What is called the miraculous medal continues in our own 
days to effect a great number of conversions by the same 
magnetic law. The vision and illumination of the young 
Israelite, Alphonse de Ratisbonne, is the most remarkable 
fact of this kind. Imagination is creative not only within 
us but without us by means of our fluidic prejections, and 
undoubtedly the phenomena of the labarum of Constantine 
and the cross of Migne should be attributed to no other 
cause. 

The magic chain of speech was typified among the an¬ 
cients by chains of gold, which issued from the mouth of 
Hermes. Nothing equals the electricity of eloquence. 
Speech creates the highest intelligence in the most grossly 
constituted masses. Even those who are too remote for 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


271 


actual hearing understand by excitement, and are carried 
away with the crowd. Peter the Hermit convulsed Europe 
by his cry of ‘ £ God wills it! ’ ’ A single word of the Em¬ 
peror electrified his army, and made France invincible. 
Proudhon destroyed socialism by his celebrated paradox: 

Property is robbery. ’ ’ A current saying is frequently suf¬ 
ficient to overturn a reigning power. Voltaire knew this 
well who shook the world by sarcasms.. So, also, he who 
feared neither pope nor king, neither parliament nor Bas¬ 
tille, was afraid of a pun. We are on the verge of accom¬ 
plishing the intentions of that man whose sayings we repeat. 

The third method of establishing the magic chain is by 
contact. Between persons who meet frequently, the head 
of the current soon manifests, and the strongest will is not 
slow to absorb the others. The direct and positive grasp of 
hand by hand completes the harmony of dispositions and it 
is for this reason a mark of sympathy and intimacy. Chil¬ 
dren, who are guided instinctively by nature, from the 
magic chain by playing at bars or rounds; then gaiety 
spreads, then laughter rings. Circular tables are more 
favourable to convivial feasts than those of any other shape. 
The great circular dance of the Sabbath, which con¬ 
cluded the mysterious assemblies of adepts in the middle 
ages, was a magic chain, which joined all in the same inten¬ 
tions and the same acts. It was formed by standing back 
to back and linking hands, the face outside the circle, in 
imitation of those antique sacred dances, representations of 
which are still found on the sculptures of old temples. The 
electric furs of the lynx, panther, and even domestic cat, 
were stitched to their garments, in imitation of the ancient 
bacchanalia; hence comes the tradition that the Sabbath 
miscreants each wore a cat hung from the girdle, and that 
they danced in this guise. 

The phenomena of tilting and talking tables has been a 
fortuitous manifestation of fluidic communication by means 
of the circular chain. Mystification combined with it after¬ 
wards, and even educated and intelligent persons were so 


272 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


infatuated with the novelty that they hoaxed themselves, 
and became the dupes of their own absurdity. The oracles 
of the tables were answers more or less voluntarily sug¬ 
gested or extracted by chance; they resembled the conversa¬ 
tions which we hold or hear in dreams. Other and stranger 
phenomena may have been the external manifestations of 
imaginations operating in common. We, however, by no 
means deny the possible intervention of elementary spirits 
in these occurrences, as in those of divination by cards or 
by dreams; but we do not believe that it has been in any 
sense proven, and we are therefore in no way obliged to 
admit it. 

One of the most extraordinary powers of human imagina¬ 
tion is the realisation of the desires of the will, or even of 
its apprehensions and fears. We believe easily anything 
that we fear or desire, says a proverb; and it is true, be¬ 
cause desire and fear impart to imagination a realising 
power, the effects of which are incalculable. How is one 
attacked, for example, by a disease about which one feels 
nervous? We have already cited the opinions of Para¬ 
celsus on this point, and have established in our doctrinal 
part the occult laws confirmed by experience; but in mag¬ 
netic currents, and by mediation of the chain, the realisa¬ 
tions are all the more strange because almost invariably un¬ 
expected, at least when the chain has not been formed by 
an intelligent, sympathetic, and powerful leader. In fact, 
they are the result of purely blind and fortuitous com¬ 
binations. The vulgar fear of superstitious feasters, when 
they find themselves thirteen at table, and their conviction 
that some misfortune threatens the youngest and weakest 
among them, is, like most superstitions, a remnant of magi¬ 
cal science. The duodenary being a complete and cyclic 
number in the universal analogies of nature, invariably at¬ 
tracts and absorbs the thirteenth, which is regarded as a 
sinister and superfluous number. If the grindstone of a 
mill be represented by the number twelve, then thirteen is 
that of the grain which is to be ground. On kindred con- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


273 


siderations, the ancients established the distinctions be¬ 
tween lucky and unlucky numbers, whence came the ob¬ 
servance of days of good or evil augury. It is in such 
concerns, above all, that imagination is creative, so that 
both days and numbers seldom fail to be propitious or other¬ 
wise to those who believe in their influence. Consequently, 
Christianity was right in proscribing the divinatory 
sciences, for} in thus diminishing the number of blind 
chances, it gave further scope and empire to liberty. 

Printing is an admirable instrument for the formation of 
the magic chain by the extension of speech. No book is 
lost; as a fact, writings go invariably precisely where they 
should go, and the aspirations of thought attract speech. 
We have proved this a hundred times in the course of our 
magical initiation; the rarest books have offered them¬ 
selves without seeking as soon as they became indispensable. 
Thus have we recovered intact that universal science which 
so many learned persons have regarded as engulfed by a 
number of successive cataclysms; thus have we entered the 
great magical chain which began with Hermes or Enoch, and 
will only end with the world. Thus have we been able to 
evoke, and come face to face with, the spirits of Apollonius, 
Plotinus, Synesius, Paracelsus, Cardanus, Agrippa, and 
others less or more known, but too religiously celebrated to 
make it possible for them to be named lightly. We continue 
their great work, which others will take up after us. But 
unto whom will it be given to complete it? 


274 


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CHAPTER XII 

THE GREAT WORK 

To be ever rich, to be always young, and to die never; such, 
from all time, has been the dream of the alchemists. To 
change lead, mercury, and all other metals into gold, to 
possess the universal medicine and the elixir of life—such 
is the problem which must be solved to accomplish this 
desire and to realise this dream. Like all magical mysteries, 
the secrets of the great work have a triple meaning; they 
are religious, philosophical, and natural. The philosophical 
gold in religion is the absolute and supreme reason; in phi¬ 
losophy, it is truth; in visible nature, it is the sun; in the 
subterranean and mineral world, it is the purest and most 
perfect gold. Hence the search after the great work is called 
the search for the absolute, and this work itself is termed 
the operation of the sun. All masters of science recognise 
that it is impossible to achieve material results until we 
have found all the analogies of the universal medicine and 
the philosophical stone in the two superior degrees. Then, 
it is affirmed, is the labour simple, light, and inexpensive; 
otherwise, it consumes to no purpose the life and fortune of 
the bellows-blower. 

The universal medicine is, for the soul, supreme reason 
and absolute justice; for the mind, it is mathematical and 
practical truth; for the body, it is the quintessence, which 
is a combination of gold and light. In the superior world, 
the first mater of the great work is enthusiasm and activity; 
in the intermediate world, it is intelligence and industry; 
in the inferior world, it is labour; in science it is sulphur, 
mercury, and salt, which, volatilised and fixed alternately, 
compose the Azoth of the sages. Sulphur corresponds to 
the elementary form of fire, mercury to air and water, salt 
to earth. All the masters in alchemy who have written con- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


275 


cerning the great work have employed symbolical and fig¬ 
urative expressions, and have rightly done so, as much to 
deter the profane from a work which would, for them, be 
dangerous, as to make themselves intelligible to adepts, by 
revealing the entire world of analogies w T hich is ruled by 
the one and sovereign dogma of Hermes. For such, gold 
and silver are the sun and moon, or the king and queen; 
sulphur is the flying eagle; mercury is the winged and 
bearded hermaphrodite, throned upon a cube and crowned 
with flames; matter or salt is the winged dragon; metals in 
the molten state are lions of various colours; finally, the 
whole work is symbolised by the pelican and phoenix. Her¬ 
metic art is, therefore, at one and the same time, a religion, 
a philosophy, and a natural science. Considered as relig¬ 
ion, it is that of the ancient magi and the initiates of all the 
ages; as a philosophy, its priciples may be found in the 
school of Alexandria and in the theories of Pythagoras; as 
science, its priciples must be sought from Paracelsus, Nich¬ 
olas Flamel, and Raymund Lully. The science is true only 
for those who accept and understand the philosophy and 
religion, and its processes are successful only for the adept 
who has attained sovereign volition, and has thus become 
the monarch of the elementary world, for the great agent 
of the solar work is that force described in the Hermetic 
symbol of the Emerald Table; it is universal magical power; 
it is the igneous spiritual motor; it is the Od of the He¬ 
brews, and the astral light, according to the expression we 
have adopted in this work. There is the secret, living, and 
philosophical fire, of which all Hermetic philosophers speak 
only with the most mysterious reservations ; there is the 
universal sperm, the secret of which they guarded, repre¬ 
senting it only under the emblem of the caduceus of Hermes. 
Here then is the great Hermetic arcanum, and we reveal 
it for the first time clearly and devoid of mystical figures; 
what the adepts term dead substances are bodies as found 
in nature; living substances are those which have been as¬ 
similated and magnetised by the science and will of the 


276 


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operator. Therefore the great work is something more than 
a chemical operation; it is an actual creation of the human 
Word initiated into the power of the Word of God himself. 

: naan 

'Ton biv npj « bn Tn:n 
firm vnwn rn:on Kin 'D 
hi nmsm craann 
bib rrroi hn dhd ihk 
Sk aruiyoo 

: nnivm nAion 

This Hebrew text which we transcribe in proof of the 
authenticity and reality of our discovery, is derived from 
the rabbinical Jew Abraham, the master of Nicholas Flamel, 
and is found in his occult commentary on the Sepher 
Jetzirah, the sacred book of the Kabbalah. This commen¬ 
tary is extremely rare, but the sympathetic potencies of our 
chain led us to the discovery of a copy which has been pre¬ 
served since the year 1643 in the protestant church at 
Rouen. On its first page there is written: Ex dono, then an 
illegible name: Dei magni. 

The creation of gold in the great work takes place by 
transmutation and multiplication. Raymund Lully states 
that in order to make gold we must have gold and mercury, 
while in order to make silver we must have silver and mer¬ 
cury. Then he adds: “By mercury, I understand that 
mineral spirit which is so refined and purified that it gilds 
the seed of gold, and silvers the seed of silver .’* Doubtless 
he is here speaking of Od, or astral light. Salt and sulphur 
are serviceable in the work only for the preparation of 
mercury; it is with mercury above all that the magnetic 
agent must be assimilated and incorporated. Paracelsus, 
Raymund Lully, and Nicholas Flamel seem alone to have 
perfectly understood this mystery. Basil Valentine and 
Trevisan indicate it after an incomplete manner, which 
might be capable of another interpretation. But quite the 
most curious things which we have found on this subject 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


277 


are indicated by the mystical figures and magical legends 
in a book of Henry Khunrath, entitled Amphitkeatrum 
Sapientioe Aiternce. Khunrath represents and resumes the 
most learned Gnostic schools, and connects in symbology 
with the mysticism of Synesius. He affects Christianity in 
expressions and in signs, but it is easy to see that his Christ 
is the Abraxas, the luminous pentagram radiating on the 
astronomical cross, the incarnation in humanity of the 
sovereign sun celebrated by the Emperor Julian; it is the 
luminous and living manifestation of that Kuach-Elohim 
which, according to Moses, brooded and worked upon the 
bosom of the waters at the birth of the world; it is the 
man-sun, the monarch of light, the supreme magus, the 
master and conqueror of the serpent, and in the four-fold 
legend of the evangelists, Khunrath finds the allegorical key 
of the great work. One of the pantacles of his magical book 
represents the philosophical stone erected in the middle of 
a fortress surrounded by a wall in which there are twenty 
impracticable gates. One alone conducts to the sanctuary 
of the great, work. Above the stone there is a triangle 
placed upon a winged dragon, and on the stone is graven 
the name of Christ qualified as the symbolical image of all 
nature. “It is by him alone,” he adds, “that thou canst 
obtain the universal medicine for men, animals, vegetables, 
and minerals. ’ * The winged dragon, ruled by the triangle, 
represents, therefore, the Christ of Khunrath; that is, the 
sovereign intelligence of light and life; it is the secret of 
the pentagram; it is the highest dogmatic and practical 
mystery of traditional magic. Thence unto the grand and 
ever incommunicable maxim there is only one step. 

The kabbalistic figures of Abraham the Jew, which im¬ 
parted to Flamel the first desire for knowledge, are no other 
than the twenty-two keys of the Tarot, elsewhere initiated 
and resumed in the twelve keys of Basil Valentine. There 
the sun and moon reappear under the figures of emperor 
and empress; Mercury is the juggler; the Great Hierophant 
is the adept or abstractor of the quintessence; death, judg- 


278 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


ment, love, the dragon or devil, the hermit or lame elder, 
and, finally, all the remaining symbols are there found with 
their chief attributes, and almost in the same order. It 
could have scarcely been otherwise, since the Tarot is the 
primeval book and the keystone of the occult sciences; it 
must be Hermetic, because it is kabbalistic, magical, and 
theosophical. So, also, we find in the combination of its 
twelfth and twenty-second keys, superposed one upon the 
other, the hieroglyphic revelation of the solution of the 
trees or posts, forming the Hebrew letter ^ ; the man’s arms 
grand work and its mysteries. The twelfth key represents 
a man hanging by one foot from a gibbet composed of three 
constitute a triangle with his head, and his entire hiero- 
glyphical shape is that of a reversed triangle surmounted by 
a cross, an alchemical symbol known to all adepts, and rep¬ 
resenting the accomplishment of the great work. The 
twenty-second key, which bears the number twenty-one, 
because the fool which precedes it carries no numeral, 
represents a youthful female divinity slightly veiled and 
running in a flowering circle, supported at four corners by 
the four beasts of the Kabbalah. In the Italian Tarot this 
divinity has a rod in either hand; in the Besancon Tarot, 
the two wands are in one hand while the other is placed 
upon her thigh, both equally remarkable symbols of mag¬ 
netic action, either alternate in its polarisation, or simulta¬ 
neous by opposition and transmission. 

The great work of Hermes is, therefore, an essentially 
magical operation, and the highest of all, for it supposes 
the absolute in science and volition. There is light in gold, 
gold in light, and light in all things. The intelligent will, 
which assimilates the light, directs in this manner the opera¬ 
tions of substantial form, and uses chemistry solely as a 
secondary instrument. The influence of human will and 
intelligence upon the operations of nature, dependent in 
part on its labour, is otherwise a fact so real that all serious 
alchemists have succeeded in proportion to their knowledge 
and their faith, and have reproduced their thought in the 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


279 


phenomena of the fusion, salification, and recomposition of 
metals. Agrippa, who was a man of immense erudition and 
fine genius, but pure philosopher and sceptic, could not 
transcend the limits of metallic analysis and synthesis. 
Etteilla, a confused, obscure, fantastic, but persevering kab- 
balist, reproduced in alchemy the eccentricities of his mis¬ 
construed and mutilated Tarot; metals in his crucibles as¬ 
sumed extraordinary forms, which excited the curiosity of 
all Paris, with no greater profit to the operator than the fees 
which were paid by his visitors. An obscure bellows-blower 
of our own time, who died mad, poor Louis Cambriel, 
really cured his neighbours, and, by the evidence of all his 
parish, brought back to life a smith who was his friend. 
For him the metallic work took the most inconceivable and 
apparently illogical forms. One day he .beheld the figure 
of God himself in his crucible, incandescent like the sun, 
transparent as crystal, his body composed of triangular 
conglomerations, which Cambriel naively compared to 
quantities of tiny pearls. 

One of our friends, who is a learned kabbalist, but be¬ 
longs to an initiation which we regard as erroneous, per¬ 
formed recently the chemical operations of the great work, 
and succeeded in weakening his eyes through the execssive 
brilliance of the Athanor. He created a new metal which 
resembles gold, but is not gold, and hence has no value. 
Raymund Lully, Nicholas Flamel, and most probably Henry 
Khunrath, made true gold, nor did they take away their 
secret with them, for it is enclosed in their symbols, and 
they have further indicated the sources from which they 
drew for its discovery and for the realisation of its effects. 
It is this same secret which we now ourselves make public. 


280 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


CHAPTER XIII 

NECROMANCY 

We have boldly declared our opinion, or rather our convic¬ 
tion, as to the possibility of resurrection in certain cases; 
it remains for us now to complete the revelation of this 
arcanum and to expose its practice. Death is a phantom of 
ignorance; it does not exist; everything in nature is living, 
and it is because it is alive that everything is in motion and 
undergoes incessant change of form. Old age is the begin¬ 
ning of regeneration, it is the labour of renewing life, and 
the ancients represented the mystery we term death by the 
Fountain of Youth, which was entered in decrepitude and 
left in new childhood. The body is a garment of the soul. 
When this garment is completely worn out, or seriously and 
irreparably rent, it is abandoned and never reassumed. But 
when this garment is removed by some accident ivithout 
being worn out or destroyed, it can, in certain cases, be put 
on again, either by our own efforts or by the assistance 
of a stronger and more active will than ours. Death is 
neither the end of life nor the beginning of immortality; 
it is the continuation and transformation of life. Now, a 
transformation being always a progress, few of those who 
are apparently dead will consent to return to life, that is, to 
reassume the vestment which they have left behind. It is 
this which makes resurrection one of the hardest works of 
the highest initiation, and hence its success is never in¬ 
fallible, but must be regarded almost invariably as acci¬ 
dental and unexpected. To raise up a dead person we must 
suddenly and energetically rebind the most powerful chains 
of attraction which connect it with the body that it has just 
quitted. It is, therefore, necessary to be previously ac- 
quained with this chain, then to seize thereon, finally to 
produce an effort of will sufficiently powerful to instan- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


281 


taneously and irresistibly relink it. All this, as we say, is 
extremely difficult, but is in no sense absolutely impossible. 
The prejudices of materialistic science exclude resurrection 
at present from the natural order, and hence there is a 
disposition to explain all phenomena of this class by lethar¬ 
gies more or less complicated with signs of death, and more 
or less long in duration. If Lazarus rose again before our 
doctors, they would simply record in their memorials to 
recognized academies a strange case of lethargy accom¬ 
panied by an apparent beginning of putrefaction and a 
strong corpse-like odour; the exceptional occurrence would 
be labelled with a becoming name, and the matter would 
be at an end. We have no wish to frighten anyone, and if, 
out of respect for the men with diplomas who represent 
science officially, it is requisite to term our theories concern¬ 
ing resurection the art of curing exceptional and aggra¬ 
vated trances, nothing, I hope, will hinder us from making 
such a concession. But if ever a resurrection has taken 
place in the world, it is incontestable that resurrection is 
possible. Now, constituted bodies protect religion, and re¬ 
ligion positively asserts the fact of resurrections; therefore 
resurrections are possible. From this escape is difficult. 
To say that they are possible outside the laws of nature, 
and by an influence contrary to universal harmony, is to 
affirm that the spirit of disorder, darkness, and death, can 
be the sovereign arbiter of life. Let us not dispute with the 
worshippers of the devil, but pass on. 

It is not religion alone which attests the facts of resur¬ 
rection ; we have collected a number of cases. An occur¬ 
rence which impressed the imagination of Greuze, the 
painter, has been reproduced by him in one of his most 
remarkable pictures. An unworthy son, present at his 
father’s deathbed, seizes and destroys a will unfavourable 
to himself; the father rallies, leaps up, curses his son, and 
then drops back dead a second time. An analogous and 
more recent fact has been certified to ourselves by ocular 
witnesses: a friend, betraying the confidence of one who 


282 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


had just died, tore up a trust-deed he had signed, where¬ 
upon the dead person rose up, and lived to defend the rights 
of his chosen heirs, which his false friend sought to set 
aside; the guilty person went mad, and the risen man com¬ 
passionately allowed him a pension. When the Saviour 
raised up the daughter of Jairus, He was alone with three 
faithful and favoured disciples; He dismissed the noisy and 
the loud mourners, saying, ‘ * The girl is not dead but sleep¬ 
ing. ’ ’ Then, in the presence only of the father, the mother, 
and the three disciples, that is to say, in a perfect circle of 
confidence and desire, He took the child’s hand, drew her 
abruptly up, and cried to her, “ Young girl, I say to thee, 
arise!” The -undecided soul, doubtless in the immediate 
vicinity of the body, and possibly regretting its extreme 
youth and beauty, was surprised by the accents of that 
voice, which was heard by her father and mother trembling 
with hope, and on their knees; it returned into the body; 
the maiden opened her eyes, rose up, and the Master com¬ 
manded immediately that food should be given her, so that 
the functions of life might begin a new cycle of absorption 
and regeneration. The history of Eliseus, raising up the 
daughter of the Shunamite, and St Paul raising Eutychus, 
are facts of the same order; the resurection of Dorcas by 
St Peter, narrated so simply in the Acts of the Apostles, 
is also a history the truth of which can scarcely be reason¬ 
ably questioned. Apollonius of Tyana seems also to have 
accomplished similar miracles, and we ourselves have been 
the witness of facts which are not wanting in analogy with 
these, but the spirit of the century in which we live imposes 
in this respect the most careful reserve upon us, the 
thaumaturge being liable to a very indifferent reception at 
the hands of a discerning public—all which does not hinder 
the earth from revolving, or Galileo from having been a 
great man. 

The resurrection of a dead person is the masterpiece of 
magnetism, because it needs for its accomplishment the 
exercise of a kind of sympathetic omnipotence. It is pos- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


283 


sible in the case of death by congestion, by suffocation, by 
exhaustion, or by hysteria. Eutychus, who was resuscitated 
by St Paul, after falling from a third story, was doubtless 
not seriously injured internally, but had succumbed to 
asphyxia, occasioned by the rush of air during his fall, or 
alternatively to the violent shock and to terror. In a par¬ 
allel case, he who feels conscious of the power and faith 
necessary for such an accomplishment, must, like the 
apostle, practise insufflation, mouth to mouth, combined 
with contact of the extremities for the restoration of 
warmth. Were it simply a matter of what the ignorant 
call miracle, Elias and St Paul, who made use of the same 
procedure, would simply have spoken in the name of Je¬ 
hovah or of Christ. It is occasionally enough to take the 
person by the hand, and raise them quickly, calling them 
in a loud voice. This procedure, which commonly suc¬ 
ceeds in swoons, may even have effect upon the dead, when 
the magnetizer who exercises it is endowed with speech 
powerfully sympathetic and possesses what may be called 
eloquence of tone. He must also be tenderly loved or 
greatly respected by the person on whom he would operate, 
and he must perform the work with a great burst of faith 
and will, which we do not always find ourselves to possess 
in the first shock of a great sorrow. 

What is vulgarly called necromancy has nothing in com¬ 
mon with resurrection, and it is at least highly doubtful 
that in operations connected with this application of magical 
power, we really come into correspondence with the souls of 
the dead whom we evoke. There are two kinds of necro¬ 
mancy, that of light and that of darkness, the evocation by 
prayer, pantacle, and perfumes, and the evocation by blood, 
imprecations, and sacrileges. We have only practised the 
first, and advise no one to devote themselves to the second. 
It is certain that the images of the dead do appear to the 
magnetized persons who evoke them; it is certain also that 
they never reveal any mysteries of the life beyond. They 
are beheld as they still exist in the memories of those who 


284 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


knew them, and, doubtless, as their reflections have left 
them impressed on the astral light. When evoked spectres 
reply to questions addressed them, it is always by signs or 
by interior and imaginary impression, never with a voice 
which really strikes the ears, and this is comprehensible 
enough, for how should a shadow speak? With what 
instrument could it cause the air to vibrate by impressing it 
in such a manner as to make distinct sounds ? At the same 
time, electrical contacts are experienced from apparitions, 
and sometimes appear to be produced by the hand of the 
phantom, but the phenomenon is wholly subjective, and is 
occasioned solely by the power of imagination and the local 
wealth of the occult force which we term the astral light. 
The proof of this is that spirits, or at least the spectres 
pretended to be such, may indeed occasionally touch us, but 
we cannot touch them, and this is one of the most affright¬ 
ing characteristics of these apparitions, which are at times 
so real in appearance that we cannot unmoved feel the hand 
pass through that which seems a body without touching or 
meeting anything. 

We read in ecclesiastical historians that Spiridion, Bishop 
of Tremithonte, afterwards invoked as a saint, called up 
the spirit of his daughter, Irene, to ascertain from her the 
whereabouts of some concealed money which she had taken 
in charge for a traveller. Swedenborg communicated 
habitually with the so-called dead, whose forms appeared 
to him in the astral light. Several credible persons of our 
acquaintance have assured us that they have been revisited 
for years by the dead who were dear to them. The cele¬ 
brated atheist Sylvanus Marechal manifested to his widow 
and one of her friends, to acquaint her concerning a sum of 
1500 francs which he had concealed in a secret drawer. 
This anecdote was related to us by an old friend of the 
family. 

Evocations should have always a motive and a becoming 
end; otherwise, they are works of darkness and folly, most 
dangerous for health and reason. To evoke out of pure 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


285 


curiosity, and to find out whether we shall see anything, is 
to be predisposed to fruitless fatigue. The transcendental 
sciences admit of neither doubt nor puerility. The per¬ 
missible motive of an evocation may be either love or 
intelligence. Evocations of love require less apparatus and 
are in every respect easier. The procedure is as follows: 
We must, in the first place, carefully collect the memorials 
of him (or her) whom we desire to behold, the articles 
he used, and on which his impression remains; we must 
also prepare an apartment in which the person lived, or 
otherwise one of similar kind, and place his portrait veiled 
in white therein, surrounded with his favourite flowers, 
which must be renewed daily. A fixed date must then be 
observed, either the birthday of the person, or that day 
which was most fortunate for his and our own affection, one 
of which we may believe that his soul, however blessed 
elsewhere, cannot lose the remembrance; this must be the 
day for the evocation, and we must provide for it during 
the space of fourteen days. Throughout this period we 
must refrain from extending to any one the same proofs of 
affection which we have the right to expect from the dead; 
we must observe strict chastity, live in retreat, and take 
only one modest and light collation daily. Every evening 
at the same hour we must shut ourselves in the chamber 
consecrated to the memory of the lamented person, using 
only one small light, such as that of a funeral lamp or 
taper. This light should be placed behind us, the portrait 
should be uncovered, and we should remain before it for an 
hour, in silence; finally, we should fumigate the apartment 
with a little good incense, and go out backwards. On the 
morning of the day fixed for the evocation, we should adorn 
ourselves as if for a festival, not salute any one first, make 
but a single repast of bread, wine, and roots, or fruits; the 
cloth should be white, two covers should be laid, and one 
portion of the bread broken should be set aside; a little 
wine should also be placed in the glass of the person we 
design to invoke. The meal must be eaten alone in the 


286 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


chamber of evocations, and in presence of the veiled por¬ 
trait; it must be all cleared away at the end, except the 
glass belonging to the dead person, and his portion of 
bread, which must be placed before the portrait. In the 
evening, at the hour for the regular visit, we must repair in 
silence to the chamber, light a clear fire of cypress-wood, 
and cast incense seven times thereon, pronouncing the name 
of the person whom we desire to behold. The lamp must 
then be extinguished, and the fire permitted to die out. On 
this day the portrait must not be unveiled. When the flame 
is extinct, put more incense on the ashes, and invoke God 
according to the forms of the religion to which the dead 
person belonged, and according to the ideas which he him¬ 
self possessed of God. While making this prayer, we must 
identify ourselves with the evoked person, speak as he 
spoke, believe in a sense as he believed; then, after a silence 
of fifteen minutes, we must speak to him as if he were 
present, with affection and with faith, praying him to 
manifest to us. Renew this prayer mentally, covering the 
face with both hands; then call him thrice with a loud 
voice; tarry on our knees, the eyes closed or covered, for 
some minutes; then again call thrice upon him in a sweet 
and affectionate tone, and slowly open the eyes. Should 
nothing result, the same experiment must be renewed in 
the following year, and if necessary a third time, when it is 
certain that the desired apparition will be obtained, and the 
longer it has been delayed the more realistic and striking 
it will be. 

Evocations of knowledge and intelligence are made with 
more solemn ceremonies. If concerned with a celebrated 
personage, we must meditate for twenty-one days upon his 
life and writings, form an idea of his appearance, converse 
with him mentally, and imagine his answers; carry his 
portrait, or at least his name, about us; follow a vegetable 
diet for twenty-one days, and a severe fast during the last 
seven. We must next construct the magical oratory, de¬ 
scribed in the thirteenth chapter of our Doctrine. This 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


287 


oraory must be invariably darkened; but if we operate 
in the daytime, we may leave a narrow aperture on the 
side where the sun will shine at the hour of evocation, and 
place a triangular prism before this opening, and a crystal 
globe, filled with water, before the prism. If the operation 
be arranged for night, the magic lamp must be so placed 
that is single ray shall fall upon the altar smoke. The 
purpose of these preparations is to furnish the magic agent 
with elements of corporeal appearance, and to ease as much 
as possible the tension of imagination, which could not be 
exalted without danger into the absolute illusion of dream. 
For the rest, it will be easily understood that a beam of 
sunlight, or the ray of a lamp, coloured variously, and fall¬ 
ing upon curling and irregular smoke, can in no way create 
a perfect image. The chafing-dish containing the sacred 
fire should be in the centre of the oratory, and the altar of 
perfumes hard by. The operator must turn towards the 
east to pray, and the west to invoke; he must be either 
alone or assisted by two persons preserving the strictest 
silence; he must wear the magical vestments, which we 
have described in the seventh chapter, and must be crowned 
with vervain and gold. He should bathe before the opera¬ 
tion, and all his under garments must be of the most intact 
and scrupulous cleanliness. The ceremony should begin 
with a prayer suited to the genius of the spirit about to be 
invoked, and one which would be approved by himself if he 
still lived. For example, it would be impossible to evoke 
Voltaire by reciting prayers in the style of St Bridget. For 
the great men of antiquity, we may use the hymns of 
Cleanthes or Orpheus, with the adjuration terminating'the 
Golden Verses of Pythagoras. In our own evocation of 
Apollonius, we used the magical philosophy of Patricius 
for the ritual, containing the doctrines of Zoroaster and 
the writings of Hermes Trismegistus. We recited the 
Nuctemeron of Apollonius in Greek with a loud voice, 
and added the following conjuration:— 

Vouchsafe to be present, 0 Father of All, and thou 


288 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


Thrice Mighty Hermes, Conductor of the Dead. Asclepius, 
son of Hephaistus, Patron of the Healing Art: and thou 
Osiris, Lord of strength and vigour, do thou thyself be 
present too. Amebaseenis, Patron of Philosophy, and yet 
again Asclepius, son of Imuthe, who presidest over 
poetry . . . 

• •••••• 

Apollonius, Apollonius, Apollonius! Thou teachest the 
Magic of Zoroaster, son of Oromasdes; and this is the wor¬ 
ship of the Gods. 

For the evocation of spirits belonging to religions issued 
from Judaism, the following kabbalistic invocation of Solo¬ 
mon should be used, either in Hebrew, or in any other 
tongue with which the spirit in question is known to have 
been familiar:— 

Powers of the Kingdom, be ye under my left foot and in 
my right hand! Glory and Eternity, take me by the two 
shoulders, and direct me in the paths of victory! Mercy 
and Justice, be ye the equilibrium and splendour of my 
life! Intelligence and Wisdom, crown me! Spirits of 
Malchuth, lead me betwixt the two pillars upon which 
rests the whole edifice of the temple! Angels of Netsah 
and PIod, strengthen me upon the cubic stone of Jesod! 
O Gedulael ! 0 Geburael ! O Tiphereth ! Binael, be thou 
my love! Ruach Hochmael, be thou my light! Be that 
which thou art and thou shalt be, 0 Ketheriel! Ischim, 
assist me in the name of Saddai ! Cherubim , be my strength 
in the name of Adonai! Beni-Elohim, be my brethren in 
the name of the Son, and by the powers of Zebaoth ! 
Elo'im, do battle for me in the name of Tetragrammaton ! 
Malachim, protect me in the name of Jod He Vau He! 
Seraphim, cleanse my love in the name of Elvoh ! Hasmalim, 
enlighten me with the splendours of Eloi and Shechinah! 
Aralim, act! Ophanim, revolve and shine! Hajoth a 
Kadosh, cry, speak, roar, bellow! Kadosh, Kadosh, Ka- 
dosh, Saddai, Adonai, Jotchavah, Eieazereie! Hallelu¬ 
jah, Hallelu-jah, Hallelu-jah. Amen. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


289 


It should be remembered above all, in conjurations, that 
the names of Satan, Beelzebub, Adramelek, and others do 
not designate spiritual unities, but legions of impure spirits. 

Our name is legion, for we are many, ’ ’ says the spirit of 
darkness in the Gospel. Number constitutes the law, and 
progress takes place inversely in hell—that is to say, the 
most advanced in Satanic development, and consequently 
the most degraded, are the least intelligent and feeblest. 
Thus, a fatal law drives the demons downward when they 
wish and believe themselves to be ascending. So also those 
who term themselves chiefs are the most impotent and 
despised of all. As to the horde of perverse spirits, they 
tremble before an unknown, invisible, incomprehensible, 
capricious, implacable chief, who never explains his laws, 
whose arm is ever stretched out to strike those who fail to 
understand him. They give this phantom the names of 
Baal, Jupiter, and even others more venerable, which can¬ 
not, without profanation, be pronounced in hell. But this 
phantom is only the shadow and remnant of God, disfigured 
by their wilful perversity, and persisting in their imagina¬ 
tion like a vengeance of justice and a remorse of truth. 

When the evoked spirit of light manifests with dejected 
or irritated countenance, we must offer him a moral sacri¬ 
fice, that is, be inwardly disposed to renounce whatever of¬ 
fends him; and before leaving the oratory, we must dismiss 
him, saying: ‘ ‘ May peace be with thee! I have not wished 
to trouble thee; do thou torment me not. I shall labour to 
improve myself as to anything that vexes thee. I pray, and 
will still pray, with thee and for thee. Pray thou also both 
with and for me, and return to thy great slumber, expecting 
that day when we shall awake together. Silence and 
adieu!” 

We must not close this chapter without giving some de¬ 
tails on black magic for the benefit of the curious. The 
practices of Thessalian sorcerers and Roman Canidias are 
described by several ancient authors. In the first place, 
a pit was dug, at the mouth of which they cut the throat 


290 


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of a black sheep; the psylla* and larva* presumed to be 
present, and swarming round to drink the blood, were 
driven off with the magic sword; the triple Hecate and the 
infernal gods were evoked, and the phantom whose appari¬ 
tion was desired was called upon three times. In the middle 
ages, necromancers violated tombs, composed philtres and 
unguents with the fat and blood of corpses combined with 
aconite, belladonna, and poisonous fungi; they boiled and 
skimmed these frightful compounds over fires nourished 
with human bones and crucifixes stolen from churches; 
they added dust of dried toads and ash of consecrated hosts; 

' they anointed their temples, hands, and breasts with the 
infernal unguent, traced the diabolical pantacles, evoked 
the dead beneath gibbets or in deserted graveyards. Their 
howlings were heard from afar, and belated travellers 
imagined that legions of phantoms rose out of the earth; 
the very trees, in their eyes, assumed appalling shapes; 
fiery orbs gleamed in the thickets; frogs in the marshes 
seemed to echo mysterious words of the Sabbath with croak¬ 
ing voices. It was the magnetism of hallucination, the 
contagion of madness. 

The end of procedure in black magic was to disturb 
reason and produce the feverish excitement which em¬ 
boldens to great crimes. The grimoires, formerly seized 
and burnt by authority everywhere, are certainly not harm¬ 
less books. Sacrilege, murder, theft, are indicated or hinted 
as means to realisation in almost all these works. Thus, in 
the Great Grimoire, and its modem version, the Red 
Dragon, there is a recipe entitled “Composition of Death, 
or Philosophical Stone,” a broth of aqua fortis, copper, 
arsenic, and verdigris. There are also necromatic processes, 
comprising the tearing up of earth from graves with the 
nails, dragging out bones, placing them crosswise on the 
breast, then assisting at midnight mass on Christmas eve, 
and flying out of the church at the moment of consecra¬ 
tion, crying: “Let the dead rise from their tombs!”— 
then returning to the graveyard, taking a handful of earth 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


291 


nearest to the coffin, running back to the door of the church, 
which has been alarmed by the clamour, depositing the two 
bones crosswise, again shouting: “Let the dead rise from 
their tombs,” and then, if we escape being seized and 
shut up in a mad-house, retiring at a slow pace, and count¬ 
ing four thousand five hundred steps in a straight line, 
which means following a broad road or scaling walls. 
Having traversed this space, you must lie down upon the 
earth, place yourself as if in a coffin, and repeat in lugu¬ 
brious tones: “Let the dead rise from their tombs!” 
Finally, call thrice on the person whose apparition you 
desire. No doubt any one who is mad enough and wicked 
enough to abandon himself to such operations is predis¬ 
posed to all chimeras and all phantoms. Hence the recipe 
of the Grand Grimoire is most efficacious, but we advise 
none of our readers to have recourse to it. 


292 


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CHAPTER XIV 


TRANSMUTATIONS 



St Augustine? speculates, as we have said, whether 
Apuleius could have been changed into an ass and then 
have resumed his human shape. The same doctor might 
have equally concerned himself with the adventure of the 
comrades of Ulysses, transformed into swine by Circe. In 
vulgar opinion, transmutations and metamorphoses have 
always been the very essence of magic. Now, the crowd, 
being the echo of opinion, which is queen of the world, is 
never perfectly right nor entirely wrong. Magic really 
changes the nature of things, or, rather, modifies their ap¬ 
pearances at pleasure, according to the strength of the 
operator's will and the fascination of ambitious adepts. 
Speech creates its form, and when a person, held infallible, 
confers a name upon a given thing, he really transforms 
that thing into the substance signified by the name. The 















































TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


293 


masterpiece of speech and of faith, in this order, is the 
real transmutation of a substance without change in its ap¬ 
pearances. Had Apollonius offered a cup of wine to his 
disciples, and said to them: ‘ ‘ This is my blood, of which ye 
shall drink henceforth to perpetuate my life within you; ’ ’ 
and had his disciples through centuries believed that they 
continued the transformation by repeating the same words; 
had they taken the wine, despite its odour and taste, for the 
real, human, and living blood of Apollonius, we should 
have to* acknowledge this master in theurgy as the most 
accomplished of enchanters and most potent of all the magi. 
It would remain for us then to adore him. 

Now, it is well known that mesmerists impart for their 
somnambulists any taste that they choose to plain water, 
and if we assume a magus having sufficient command over 
the astral fluid to magnetize at the same moment a whole 
assembly of persons, otherwise prepared for magnetism by 
adequate over-excitement, we shall be in a position to ex¬ 
plain readily, not indeed the Gospel miracle of Cana, but 
works of the same class. Are not the fascinations of love, 
which result from the universal magic of nature, truly 
prodigious, and do they not actually transform persons and 
things ? Love is a dream of enchantments that transfigures 
the world; all becomes music and fragrance, all intoxication 
and felicity. The beloved being is beautiful, is good, is 
sublime, is infallible, is radiant, beams with health and 
happiness. When the dream ends we seem to have fallen 
from the clouds; we are inspired with disgust for the 
brazen sorceress who took the place of the lovely Melusine, 
for the Thersites whom we deemed was Achilles or Nereus. 
What is there we cannot cause the person who loves us to 
believe? But also what reason or justice can we instil into 
those who no longer love us? Love begins magician and 
ends sorcerer. After creating the illusions of heaven on 
earth, it realises those of hell; its hatred is absurd like its 
ardour, because it is passional, that is, subject to influences 
which are fatal for it. For this cause it has been proscribed 


294 


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by sages, who declare it to be the enemy of reason. Are 
they to be envied or commiserated for thus condemning, 
doubtless without understanding, the most alluring of ill- 
doers? All that can be said is that when they spoke thus, 
they either had not yet loved or they loved no longer. 

Things that are eternal are for us what our word in¬ 
ternal makes them. To believe that we are happy is to 
be happy; what we esteem becomes precious in proportion 
to the estimation itself: this is the sense in which we can 
say that magic changes the nature of things. The “Meta¬ 
morphoses” of Ovid are true, but they are allegorical, like 
the ‘ ‘ Golden Ass ’ 9 of rare Apuleius. The life of beings is a 
progressive transformation, and its forms can be de¬ 
termined, renewed, prolonged further, or destroyed sooner. 
If the doctrine of metempsychosis were true, might one not 
say that the debauch represented by Circe really and ma¬ 
terially changes men into swine; for, on this hypothesis, the 
retribution of vices would be a relapse into animal forms 
that correspond to them ? Now, metempsychosis, which has 
frequently been misinterpreted, has a perfectly true side; 
animal forms communicate their sympathetic impressions to 
the astral body of man, which speedily reacts on his apti¬ 
tudes according to the force of his habits. A man of in¬ 
telligent and passive mildness assumes the inert physiog¬ 
nomy and ways of a sheep, but in somnambulism it is a 
sheep that is seen, and not a man with a sheepish counte¬ 
nance, as the ecstatic and learned Swedenborg experienced 
a thousand times. In the kabbalistic book of Daniel the 
seer, this mystery is represented by the legend of Nabucho- 
donsor changed into a beast, which, after the common fate 
of magical allegories, has been mistaken for an actual his¬ 
tory. In this way, we can really transform men into ani¬ 
mals and animals into men; we can metamorphose plants 
and alter their virtue ; we can endow minerals with ideal 
properties; it is all a question of willing. We can equally 
render ourselves visible or invisible at will, and this helps 
us to explain the mysteries of the ring of Gyges. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


295 


In the first place, let us remove from the mind of our 
readers all supposition of the absurd; that is, of an effect 
devoid of cause or contradicting its cause. To become in¬ 
visible one of three things is necessary—the interposition 
of some opaque medium between the light and our body, or 
between our body and the eyes of the spectators, or the 
fascination of the eyes of the spectators in such a manner 
that they cannot make use of their sight. Of these methods, 
the third only is magical. Have we not all of us observed 
that under the government of a strong preoccupation we 
look without seeing and hurt ourselves against objects in 
front of us? “So do, that seeing they may not see/’ said 
the great Initiator, and the history of this grand master 
tells us that one day, finding himself on the point of being 
stoned in the temple, he made himself invisible and went 
out. There is no need to repeat here the mystifications of 
popular grimoires about the ring of invisibility. Some 
ordain that it shall be composed of fixed mercury, enriched 
by a small stone which it is indispensable to find in a 
pewit’s nest, and kept in a box of the same metal. The 
author of the “Little Albert” ordains that this ring should 
be composed of hairs tom from the head of a raging hyena, 
which recalls the history of the bell of Rodilard. The only 
writers who have discoursed seriously of the ring of Gyges 
are Jamblichus, Porphyry, and Peter of Apono. What 
they say is evidently allegorical, and the representation 
which they give, or that which can be made from their 
description, proves that they are really speaking of nothing 
but the great magical arcanum. One of the figures depicts 
the universal movement, harmonic and equilibrated in im¬ 
perishable being; another, which should be formed from 
an amalgam of the seven metals, calls for a description in 
detail. It has a double collet and two precious stonesr—a 
topaz, constellated with the sign of the sun, and an emerald 
with the sign of the moon; it should bear on the inner 
side the occult characters of the planets, and on the outer 
their known signs, twice repeated and in kabbalistic op- 


296 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


position to each other; that is, five on the right and five on 
the left; the signs of the sun and moon resuming the four 
several intelligences of the seven planets. Now, this con¬ 
figuration is no other than that of a pantaele signifying all 
the mysteries of magical doctrine, and here is the occult 
significance of the ring: to exercise the omnipotence, of 
which ocular fascination is one of the most difficult demon¬ 
strations to give, we must possess all science and know 
how to make use of it. 

Fascination is fulfilled by magnetism. The magus in¬ 
wardly forbids a whole assembly to see him, and it does 
not see him. In this manner he passes through guarded 
gates, and departs from prison in the face of his petrified 
gaolers. At such times a strange numbness is experienced, 
and they recall having seen the magus as if in a dream, but 
never till after he has gone. The secret of invisibility, 
therefore, wholly consists in a power which is capable of 
definition—that of distracting or paralysing attention, so 
that the light reaches the visual organ without impressing 
the eye of the soul. To exercise this power we must possess 
a will accustomed to sudden and energetic actions, great 
presence of mind, and skill no less great in causing diver¬ 
sions among the crowd. Let a man, for example, who is 
being pursued by his intending murderers, dart into a side 
street, return immediately, and advance with perfect calm¬ 
ness towards his pursuers, or let him mix with them and 
seem to be engaged in the chase, and he will certainly make 
himself invisible. A priest who was being hunted in ’93, 
with the intention of hanging him from a lamp-post, fled 
down a side street, assumed a stooping gait, and leaned 
against a corner, with an intensely preoccupied expression; 
the crowd of his enemies swept past; not one saw him, or 
rather, it never struck anyone to recognise him; it was so 
unlikely to be he! The person who desires to be seen 
always makes himself observed, and he who would remain 
unnoticed effaces himself and disappears. The true ring of 
Gyges is the will; it is also the rod of transformations, 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


297 


and by its precise and strong formulation it creates the 
magical word. The omnipotent terms of enchantments are 
those which express this creative power of forms. The 
tetragram, which is the supreme word of magic, signifies: 
“It is that which it shall be,” and if we apply it to any 
transformation whatsoever with full intelligence, it will 
renew and modify all things, even in the teeth of evidence 
and common sense. The hoc est of the Christian sacrifice 
is a translation and application of the tetragram; hence 
this simple utterance operates the most complete, most in¬ 
visible, most incredible, and most clearly affirmed of all 
transformations. A still stronger word than that of trans¬ 
formation has been judged necessary by councils to express 
the marvel, that of transubstantiation. 

. The Hebrew terms mn\ K'ttK, rpnN, idk, have been con " 

sidered by all kabbalists as the keys of magical transforma¬ 
tion. The Latin words, est, sit, esto, fiat, have the same 
force when pronounced with full understanding. M. de 
Montalembert seriously relates, in his legend of St Elizabeth 
of Hungary, how one day this saintly lady, surprised by her 
noble husband, from whom she sought to conceal her good 
works, in the act of carrying bread to the poor in her apron, 
told him that she was carrying roses, and it proved on in¬ 
vestigation that she had spoken truly; the loaves had been 
changed into roses. This story is a most gracious magical 
apologue, and signifies that the truly wise man cannot lie, 
that the word of wisdom determines the form of things, 
or even their substance independently of their forms. Why, 
for example, should not'the noble spouse of St Elizabeth, 
a good and firm Christian like herself, and believing im¬ 
plicitly in the real presence of the Saviour in true human 
body upon an altar where he beheld only a wheaten host, 
why should he not believe in the real presence of roses in 
his wife’s apron under the appearance of bread? She ex¬ 
hibited him loaves undoubtedly, but as she had said that 
they were roses, and as he believed her incapable of the 
smallest falsehood, he saw and wished to see roses only. 


298 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


This is the secret of the miracle. Another legend narrates 
how a saint, whose name has escaped me, finding nothing to 
eat on a Lenten day or a Friday, commanded the fowl to 
become a fish, and it became a fish. The parable needs 
no interpretation, and it recalls a beautiful story of St 
Spiridion of Tremithonte, the same who evoked the soul of 
his daughter Irene. One Good Friday a traveller reached 
the abode of the holy bishop, and as bishops in those days 
took Christianity in earnest, and were consequently poor, 
Spiridion, who fasted religiously, had in his house only some 
salted bacon, which had been made ready for Easter. The 
stranger was overcome with fatigue and famished with 
hunger; Spiridion offered him the meat, and himself shared 
the meal of charity, thus transforming the very flesh which 
the Jews regard as of all most impure into a feast of peni¬ 
tence, transcending the material law by the spirit of the law 
itself, and proving himself a true and intelligent disciple 
of the man-God, who hath established his elect as the 
monarchs of nature in the three worlds. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


299 


CHAPTER XV 

THE SABBATH OF THE SORCERERS 

We return once more to that terrible number fifteen, sym- 
bolished in the Tarot by a monster throned upon an altar, 
mitred and horned, having a woman’s breasts and the 
generative organs of a man—a chimera, a malformed 
sphinx, a synthesis of monstrosities ; below this figure we 
read a frank and simple inscription —The Devil. Yes, we 
confront here the phantom of all terrors, the dragon of 
all theogonies, the Ariman of the Persians, the Typhon of 
the Egyptians, the Python of the Greeks, the old serpent 
of the Hebrews, the fantastic monster, the nightmare, the 
Croquemitaine, the gargoyle, the great beast of the middle 
ages, and, worse than all this, the Baphomet of the 
Templars, the bearded idol of the alchemists, the obscene 
deity of Mendes, the goat of the Sabbath. The frontispiece 
to this Riual reproduces the exact figure of the terrible 
emperor of night, with all his attributes and all his 
characters. 

Let us state now for the edification of the vulgar, for the 
satisfaction of M. le Comte de Mirville, for the justification 
of the demonologist Bodin, for the greater glory of the 
Church, which persecuted Templars, burnt magicians, ex¬ 
communicated Freemasons, &c.—let us state boldly and 
precisely that all the inferior initiates of the occult sciences 
and profaners of the great arcanum, not only did in the 
past, but do now, and will ever, adore what is signified by 
this alarming symbol. Yes, in our profound conviction, the 
Grand Masters of the Order of the Templars worshipped 
the Baphomet, and caused it to be worshipped by their 
adepts; yes, there existed in the past, and there may be 
still in the present, assemblies which are presided over by 
this figure, seated on a throne and having a flaming torch 


300 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


between the horns ; but the adorers of this sign do not 
consider, as do we, that it is the representation of the devil; 
on the contrary, for them it is that of the god Pan, the god 
of our modem schools of philosophy, the god of the Alex¬ 
andrian theurgic school, and of our own mystical Neopla- 
tonists, the god of Lamartine and Victor Cousin, the god 
of Spinoza and Plato, the god of the primitive Gnostic 
schools; the Christ also of the dissident priesthood; this 
last qualification, ascribed to the goat of black magic, will 
not astonish students of religious antiquities who are ac¬ 
quainted with the phases of symbolism and doctrine in their 
various transformations, whether in India, Egypt, or Judea. 

The bull, the dog, and the goat are the three symbolical 
animals of Hermetic magic, resuming all the traditions of 
Egypt and India. The bull represents the earth or salt of 
the philosophers; the dog is Hermanubis, the Mercury of 
the sages, fluid, air, and water; the goat represents fire, and 
is at the same time the symbol of generation. Two goats, 
one pure and one impure, were consecrated in Judea; the 
first was sacrificed in expiation for sins; the other, loaded 
with those sins by imprecation, was set at liberty in the 
desert—a strange ordinance, but one of deep symbolism, 
reconciliation by sacrifice and expiation by liberty! Now, 
all the fathers of the Church, who have concerned them¬ 
selves with Jewish symbolism, have recognized in the im¬ 
molated goat the figure of him who assumed, as they say, 
the very form of sin. Hence the Gnostics were not outside 
symbolical tradition when they gave Christ the Liberator 
this same mystical figure. All the Kabbalah and all magic, 
as a fact, are divided between the cultus of the immolated 
and that of the emissary goat. There is, therefore, the 
magic of the sanctuary and that of the wilderness, the white 
and the black Church, the priesthood of public assemblies 
and the sanhedrin of the Sabbath. The goat which is rep¬ 
resented in our frontispiece bears upon his forehead the 
sign of the pentagram with one point in the ascendant, 
which is sufficient to distinguish him as a symbol of the 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


301 


light; he makes the sign of occultism with both hands, 
pointing upward to the white moon of Chesed, and down¬ 
ward to the black moon of Geburah. This sign expresses 
the perfect harmony of mercy with justice. One of the 
arms is feminine and the other masculine, as in the an¬ 
drogyne of Khunrath, whose attributes we have combined 
with those of our goat, since they are one and the same 
symbol. The torch of intelligence burning between the 
horns is the magical light of universal equilibrium; it is 
also the type of the soul exalted above matter, even while 
connecting with matter, as the flame connects with the 
torch. The hideous head of the animal expresses horror of 
sin, for which the material agent, alone responsible, must 
alone and for ever bear the penalty, because the soul is 
impassible in its nature, and can suffer only by materialis¬ 
ing. The caduceus, which replaces the generative organ, 
represents eternal life; the scale-covered belly typifies 
water; the circle above it is the atmosphere; the feathers 
still higher up signify the volatile; lastly, humanity is de¬ 
picted by the two breasts and the androgyne arms of this 
sphinx of the occult sciences. Behold the shadows of the 
infernal sanctuary dissipated! Behold the sphinx of 
mediaeval terrors divined and cast from his throne! Quo- 
modo cecidisti, Lucifer! 

The dread Baphomet henceforth, like all monstrous idols, 
enigmas of antique science and its dreams, is only an in¬ 
nocent and even pious hieroglyph. How should man adore 
the beast, since he exercises a sovereign power over it? 
Let us affirm, for the honour of humanity, that it has never 
adored dogs and goats any more than lambs and pigeons. 
In the hieroglyphic order, why not a goat as much as a 
lamb? On the sacred stones of Gnostic Christians of the 
Basilidean sect, are representations of Christ under the 
diverse figures of kabbalistic animals—sometimes a bird, 
at others a lion, and, again, a lion or bull-headed serpent; 
but in all cases He bears invariably the same attributes of 
light, even as our goat, who cannot be confounded with 


302 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


fabulous images of Satan, owing to his sign of the 
pentagram. 

Let us assert most strongly, to combat the remnants of 
Manichaeanism which are daily appearing among Christians, 
that as a superior personality and power Satan does not 
exist. He is the personification of all errors, perversities, 
and, consequently, weaknesses. If God may be defined asN 
He who necessarily exists, may we not define His antagonist 
and enemy as he who necessarily does not exist? The ab¬ 
solute affirmation of good implies the absolute negation of 
evil; so also in the light shadow itself is luminous. Thus, 
erring spirits are good to the extent of their participation 
in being and in truth. There are no shadows without reflec¬ 
tions, no nights without moon, phosphorescence, and stars. 

If hell be just, it is good. No one has ever blasphemed 
God. The insults and mockeries addressed to His dis¬ 
figured images attain Him not. 

We have named Manichaganism, and it is by this mon¬ 
strous heresy that we shall explain the aberrations of black 
magic. The misconstrued doctrine of Zoroaster and the 
magical law of two forces constituting universal equilib¬ 
rium, have caused some illogical minds to imagine a nega¬ 
tive divinity, subordinate but hostile to the active divinity. 
Thus, the impure duad comes into being. Men were mad 
enough to halve God; the star of Solomon was separated 
into two triangles, and the Manichaeans imagined a trinity 
of night. This evil God, product of sectarian fancies, in¬ 
spired all manias and all crimes. Sanguinary sacrifices 
were offered him; monstrous idolatry replaced the true 
religion; black magic traduced the transcendent and lu¬ 
minous magic of true adepts, and horrible conventicles of 
sorcerers, ghouls, and stryges took place in caverns and 
desert places, for dementia soon changes into frenzy, and 
from human sacrifices to cannibalism there is only one step. 
The mysteries of the Sabbath have been variously described, 
but they figure always in grimoires and in magical trials; 
the revelations made on the subject may be classified under 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


303 


three heads—1. those referring to a fantastic and imaginary 
Sabbath; 2. those which betray the secrets of the occult as¬ 
semblies of veritable adepts; 3. revelations of foolish and 
criminal gatherings, having for their object the operations 
of black magic. For a large number of unhappy men and 
women, given over to these mad and abominable practices, 
the Sabbath was but a prolonged nightmare, where dreams 
appeared realities, and were induced by means of potions, 
fumigations, and narcotic frictions. Baptista Porta, whom 
we have already signalised as a mystifier, gives in his 
4 ‘Natural Magic,” a pretended recipe for tiie sorcerer’s 
unguent, by means of which they were transported to the 
Sabbath. It is a composition of child’s fat, of aconite 
boiled with poplar leaves, and some other drugs, the whole 
mixed with soot, which could not contribute to the beauty 
of the naked sorceresses who repaired to the scene anointed 
with this pomade. There is another and more serious recipe 
given by Baptista Porta, which we transcribe in Latin to 
preserve its grimoire character. Recipe: suim , acorum vul- 
gare, pentaphyllon, verspertillionis sanguinem solanum 
somniferum et oleum , the whole boiled and incorporated to 
the consistence of an unguent. We infer that compositions 
containing opiates, the pith of green hemp, datura- 
stramonium or laurel-almond, would enter quite as success¬ 
fully into such preparations. The fat or blood of night- 
birds added to these narcotics, with black magical cere¬ 
monies, would impress imagination and determine the di¬ 
rection of dreams. To Sabbaths dreamed in this manner 
we must refer the accounts of a goat issuing from pitchers 
and going back into them after the ceremony; infernal 
powders obtained from the ordure of this goat, who is called 
Master Leonard; banquets where abortions are eaten with¬ 
out salt and boiled with serpents and toads; dances, in 
which monstrous animals or men and women with im¬ 
possible shapes, take part; unbridled debauches where in- 
cubi project cold sperm. Nightmare alone could produce 
or explain such scenes. The unfortunate cure, Gaufridy, 


304 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


and his abandoned penitent, Madeline de la Palud, went 
mad through kindred delusions, and were burned for per¬ 
sisting in affirming them. We must read the depositions of 
these diseased beings during their trial to understand the 
extent of the aberration possible to an afflicted imagination. 
But the Sabbath was not always a dream; it did exist in 
reality; even now there are secret nocturnal assemblies for 
the practice of the rites of the old world, some of which 
assemblies have a religious and social object, while that of 
others is concerned with orgies and conjurations. From 
this two-fold point of view we propose to consider and 
condemn the true Sabbath, of the magic of light in one 
case and the magic of darkness in the other. 

When Christianity proscribed the public exercise of the 
ancient worships, the partisans of the latter were compelled 
to meet in secret for the celebration of their mysteries. 
Initiates presided over these assemblies, and soon established 
among the varieties of the worships a kind of orthodoxy, 
more easily facilitated by the aid of magical truth, because 
proscription unites wills and gathers up the bonds of 
brotherhood between men. Thus, the mysteries of Isis, of 
Ceres Eleusinia, of Bacchus, combined with those of the 
good goddess and primeval Druidism. The meetings took 
place usually between the days of Mercury and Jupiter, or 
between those of Venus and Saturn; the proceedings in¬ 
cluded the rites of initiation, exchange of mysterious signs, 
singing of symbolical hymns, the cementing of union at the 
banqueting board, the successive formation of the magical 
chain at table and in the dance; and, finally, the meeting 
broke up after renewing pledges in the presence of the 
chiefs and receiving instructions from them. The candi¬ 
date for the Sabbath was led, or rather carried, to the 
assembly, with his eyes covered by the magical mantle in 
which he was completely enveloped, he was led between 
immense fires, while alarming noises were made about him. 
When his face was bared, he found himself surrounded by 
infernal monsters, and in the presence of a colossal and 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


305 


hideous goat which he was commanded to adore. All these 
ceremonies were tests of his force of character and con¬ 
fidence in his initiators. The final ordeal was most decisive 
of all because it was at first sight humiliating and ridicu¬ 
lous to the mind of the candidate; he was commanded with¬ 
out circumspection to kiss respectfully the posterior of the 
goat; if he refused, his head was again covered, and he was 
transported to a distance from the assembly with such ex¬ 
traordinary rapidity that he believed himself whirled 
through the air; if he assented, he was taken round the 
symbolical idol, and there found, not a repulsive and ob¬ 
scene object, but the young and gracious countenance of a 
priestess of Isis or Maia, who gave him a maternal salute, 
and he was then admitted to the banquet. As to the orgies 
which in many such assemblies followed the banquet, we 
must beware of believing that they were generally per¬ 
mitted at these secret agapae; at the same time it is known 
that a number of gnostic sects practised them in their con¬ 
venticles during the early centuries of Christianity. That 
the flesh had its protestants in those ages of asceticism 
and compression of the senses was inevitable, and can oc¬ 
casion no surprise, but we must not accuse transcendent 
magic of the irregularities it has never authorised. Isis is 
chaste in her widowhood; Diana Panthea is a virgin; Her- 
manubis, possessing both sexes, can satisfy neither; the 
Hermetic hermaphrodite isi pure; Apollonius of Tyana. 
never yielded to the seductions of pleasure; the Emperor 
Julian was a man of rigid continence; Plotinus of Alex¬ 
andria was ascetic in the manner of his life; Paracelsus 
was such a stranger to foolish love that his sex was sus¬ 
pected ; Raymund Lully was initiated in the final secrets of 
science only after a hopeless passion which made him 
chaste for ever. It is also a magical tradition that pantacles 
and talismans lose all their virtue when he who wears them 
enters a house of prostitution or commits an adultery. 
The Sabbath of orgies must not therefore be considered as 
that of the veritable adepts. 


306 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


With regard to the term Sabbath, some have traced it to 
the name of Sabasius, and other etymologies have been 
imagined. The most simple, in our opinion, connects it 
with the Jewish Sabbath, for it is certain that the Jews, the 
most faithful depositaries of the secrets of the Kabbalah, 
were almost invariably the great masters in magic during 
the middle ages. The Sabbath was therefore the Sunday of 
the Kabbalists, the day of their religious festivals, or rather 
the night of their regular assembly. This feast, surrounded 
with mysteries, had the vulgar timidity for its safeguard 
and escaped persecution by terror. As to the diabolical Sab¬ 
bath of necromancers, it was a counterfeit of that of the 
magi, an assembly of malefactors who exploited idiots and 
fools. There horrible rites were practised and abominable 
potions compounded, there sorcerers and sorceresses laid 
their plans and instructed one another for the common sup¬ 
port of their reputation in prophecy and divination; at that 
period diviners were generally consulted and followed a 
lucrative profession while exercising a real power. Such 
institutions neither had nor could possess any regular rites; 
everything depended on the caprice of the chiefs and the 
vertigo of the assembly. What was narrated by some who 
had been present at them served as a type for all night¬ 
mares of hallucination and from this chaos of impossible 
realities and demoniac dreams have issued the revolting and 
foolish histories of the Sabbath which figure in magical 
processes and in the books of such writers as Spranger, 
Delancere, Delrio, and Bodin. 

The rites of the Gnostic Sabbath were imported into 
Germany by an association which took the name of Mopses. 
It replaced the Kabbalistic goat by the Hermetic dog, and 
the candidate, male or female, for the order initiated 
women, was brought in with eyes bandaged; the same in¬ 
fernal noise was made in their neighborhood, which sur¬ 
rounded the name of Sabbath with so many inexplicable 
rumours; they were asked whether they were afraid of the 
devil, and were abruptly required to choose between kiss- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


307 


ing the posterior of the grand master and that of a small 
silk-covered figure of a dog, which was substituted for the 
old grand idol of the goat of Mendes. The sign of recogni¬ 
tion was a ridiculous grimace, which recalls the phantas¬ 
magoria of the ancient Sabbath and the masks of the as¬ 
sistants. For the rest, their doctrine is summed up in the 
cultus of love and license. The association came into ex¬ 
istence when the! Roman Church was persecuting Free¬ 
masonry. The Mopses pretended to recruit only among 
Catholics, and for the oath at reception they substituted a 
solemn engagement upon honour to reveal no secrets of the 
order. It was more effectual than any oath, and left noth¬ 
ing for religion to object. 

The name of the Templar Baphomet, which should be 
spelt Kabbalistically backwards, is composed of three abbre¬ 
viations: Tem. oph. ab., Templi omnium hominum pacis 
abbas , “the father of the temple of universal peace among 
men.” According to some, the Bahomet was a monstrous 
head; according to others, a demon in the form of a goat. 
A sculptured coffer was disintered recently in the ruins of 
an old commandery of the temple, and antiquaries observed 
upon it a baphometic figure, corresponding by its attributes 
to the goat of Mendes and the androgyne of Khunrath. It 
was a bearded figure with a female body, holding the sun in 
one hand and the moon in the other, attached to chains. 
Now, this virile head is a beautiful allegory which attrib¬ 
utes to thought alone the initiating and creating principle. 
Here the head represents spirit and the body matter. The 
orbs enchained to the human form, and directed by that 
nature of which intelligence is the head, are also mag¬ 
nificently allegorical. The sign all the same was discovered 
to be obscene and diabolical by the learned men who ex¬ 
amined it. Can we be surprised after this at the spread of 
mediaeval superstition in our own day! One thing only 
surprises me, that, believing in the devil and his agents, 
men do not rekindle the faggots. M. Veuillot is logical and 


308 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


demands it; one should honour men who have the courage 
of their opinions. 

Pursuing our curious researches, we come now to the 
most horrible mysteries of the grimoire, those which are 
concerned with the evocations of devils and pacts with hell. 
After attributing a real existence to the absolute negation 
of goodness, after having enthroned the absurd and created 
a god of falsehood, it remained for human folly to invoke 
the impossible idol, and this maniacs have done. We were 
lately informed that the most reverend Father Ventura, 
j, formerly Superior of the Theatines, Bishops ’ Examiner, 
etc., after reading our Doctrine, declared that the kabbalah 
was, in his opinion, an invention of the devil, and that the 
star of Solomon was another diabolical device to persuade 
the world that Satan was the same as God. See what is 
taught seriously by the masters in Israel! The ideal of 
nothingness and night inventing a sublime philosophy 
which is the universal basis of faith and the keystone of all 
temples! The demon placing his signature by the side of 
God’s! My venerable masters in theology, you are greater 
sorcerers than you or others are aware, and He who said: 
‘ ‘ The devil is a liar like his father, ’ ’ would have had some 
observations to make on the decisions of your reverences. 

The evokers of the devil must before all things belong 
to a religion which admits a devil, creator and rival of God. 
To invoke a power, we must believe in it. Given this firm 
faith in the religion of the devil, we must proceed as follows 
to enter into correspondence with this pseudo-Deity: 

Magical Axiom. 

In the circle of its action, every word creates that which 
it affirms. 

Direct Consequence. 

He who affirms the devil, creates or makes the devil. 

Conditions of Success in Infernal Evocations. 

1, Invincible obstinacy; 2, a conscience at once hardened 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


309 


to crime and most subject to remorse and fear; 3, affected 
or natural ignorance; 4, blind faith in all that is incredible; 
5, a completely false idea of God. 

We must afterwards— (a) Profane the ceremonies of the 
cultus in which we believe; ( b ) offer a bloody sacrifice; 
(c) procure the magic fork, which is a branch of a single 
beam of hazel or almond, cut at one blow with the new 
knife used for the sacrifice. It must terminate in a fork, 
which must be armoured with iron or steel made from 
the blade of the before-mentioned knife. A fast of fifteen 
days must be observed, taking a single unsalted repast after 
sundown; this repast should consist of black bread and 
blood seasoned with unsalted spices or black beans and 
milky and narcotic herbs. We must get drunk every five 
days, after sundown, on wine in which five heads of black 
poppies and five ounces of pounded hemp seed have been 
steeped for five hours, the infusion being strained through 
a cloth woven by a prostitute; strictly speaking, the first 
cloth which comes to hand may be used, should it have been 
woven by a woman. The evocation should be performed 
on the night between Monday and Tuesday, or that be¬ 
tween Friday and Saturday. A solitary and condemned 
spot must be chosen, such as a cemetery haunted by evil 
spirits, an avoided ruin in the country, the vaults of an 
abandoned convent, a place where some murder has been 
committed, a druidic altar or an old temple of idols. A 
black seamless and sleeveless robe must be provided; a 
leaden cap emblazoned with the signs of the moon, Venus, 
and Saturn; two candles of human fat set in black wooden 
candlesticks, carved in the shape of a crescent; two crowns 
of vervain; a magical sword with a black handle; the 
magical fork; a copper vase containing the blood of the 
victim; a censer holding the perfumes, namely, incense, 
camphor, aloes, ambergris, and storax, kneaded with the 
blood of a goat, a mole, and a bat; four nails taken from 
the coffin of an executed criminal; the head of a black cat 
which has been nourished on human flesh for five days; 


310 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 



Goetic Circle 


of Black Evocations and Pacts. 



































TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


311 


a bat drowned in blood; the horns of a goat cum quo puella 
conculnierit ; and the skull of a parricide. All these hideous 
and scarcely obtainable objects having been collected, they 
must be aranged as follows: A perfect circle is traced by 
the sword, with a break, or way of issuing, on one side; a 
triangle is drawn in the circle, and the pantaele thus formed 
is coloured with blood; at one of the angles of the triangle 
a chafing-dish is placed, and this should have been included 
among the indispensable objects already enumerated; at the 
opposite base of the triangle three little circles are described 
for the operator and his two assistants; behind that of the 
operator the sign of the labarum or monogram of Constan¬ 
tine is drawn, not with the blood of the victim, but with 
the operator’s own blood. The operator and his assistants 
must have bare feet and covered heads. The skin of the 
immolated victim must be also brought to the place, and, 
being cut into strips, must be placed within the circle, form¬ 
ing a second and inner circle, fixed at four corners by the 
four nails from the coffin already mentioned. Hard by the 
nails, but outside the circle, must be placed the head of the 
cat, the human or rather inhuman skull, the horns of the 
goat, and the bat; they must be sprinkled with a branch 
of birch dipped in the blood of the victim, and then a fire 
of cypress and alderwood must be lighted, the two magical 
candles being placed on the right and left of the operator, 
encircled with the wreaths of vervain. The formula of evo¬ 
cation can now be pronounced, as they are found in the 
magical elements of Peter of Apono, or in the grimoires, 
wdiether printed or manuscript. That of the Grand Gri- 
moire, reproduced in the vulgar Red Dragon, has been 
wilfully altered, and should be read as follows: ‘‘ By Adonai 
Eloi'm, Adonai Jehova, Adonai' Sabaoth, Metraton On Agla 
Adonai Mathon, the pythonic word, the mystery of the 
salamander, the assembly of the sylphs, the grotto of the 
gnomes, the demons of the heaven of Gad, Almousin, Gibor, 
Jehosua, Evam, Zariatnatmik, Come, Come, Come!” 

The grand appellation of Agrippa consists only in these 


312 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


words: Dies Mies Jeschet Boenedoesef Douvema Eni- 
temaus. We make no pretence of understanding their 
meaning; possibly they possess none, assuredly none which 
is reasonable, since they avail in evoking the devil, who is 
the sovereign unreason. Picus de Mirandola, no doubt from 
the same motive, affirms that in black magic the most 
barbarous and unintelligible words are the most efficacious 
and the best. The conjurations are repeated in a louder 
voice, accompanied by imprecations and menaces, until the 
spirit replies. He is commonly preceded by a violent wind 
which seems to make the whole country resound. Then 
domestic animals tremble and hide away, the assistants feel 
a breath upon their faces, and their hair, damp with cold 
sweat, rises upon their heads. The grand and supreme 
appellation, according to Peter of Apono, is as follows:— 

“Hemen-Etan! Hemen-Etan! Hemen-Etan! El* Ati* 
Titeip* Aozia* Hyn* Teu* Minosel* Achadon* vay* vaa* 
Eye* Aaa* Eie* Exe* A EL EL EL A Hy! Hau! Hau! 
Hau! Hau! Ya! Va! Ya! Ya! CHAYAJOTH. Aie 
Saraye, aie Saraye, aie Saraye! By Eloym, Archima, Ba¬ 
bur, Bathas over Abrac, flowing down, coming from above 
Abeor upon Aberer Chavajoth! Chavajoth! Chavajoth! I 
command thee by the Key of Solomon and the great name 
Semhamphoras. ? ? 

The ordinary signs and signatures of demons are given 
below:— 




TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


313 


But they are those of the inferior demons, and here follow 
the official signatures of the princes of hell, attested judi¬ 
cially—judicially, 0 M. le Comte de Mirville!—and pre¬ 
served in the archives of justice as convicting evidences for 
the trial of the unfortunate Urbain Grandier. 



These signatures appear under a pact of which Collin de 
Plancy gives a facsimile reproduction in the Atlas of his 
“Infernal Dictionary.” It has this marginal note: “The 
draught is in hell, in the secretary of Lucifer, ’ ’ a valuable 
item of information about a locality but imperfectly known, 
and belonging to a period approximate to our own, though 
anterior to the trial of the young Labarre and Etalonde, 
who, as every one knows, were contemporaries of Voltaire. 

Evocations were frequently followed by pacts written on 
parchment of goat skin with an iron pen and blood drawn 
from the left arm. The document was in duplicate; one 
copy was carried off by the fiend and the other swallowed 
by the wilful reprobate. The reciprocal engagements were 
that the demon should serve the sorcerer during a given 
period of years, and that the sorcerer should belong to the 
demon after a determinate time. The Church in her exor- 





314 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


cisms has consecrated the belief in all these things, and it 
may be said that black magic and its darksome prince are 
the true, living, and terrible creation of Roman Catholicism; 
that they are even its special and characteristic work, for 
priests invent not God. So do true Catholics cleave from 
the bottom of their hearts to the consecration and even the 
regeneration of this great work, which is the philosophical 
stone of the official and positive cultus. In tfiieves’ slang 
the devil is called the baker by malefactors; all our desire, 
and we speak no longer from the standpoint of the magus, 
but as a devoted child of Christianity and of that Church to 
which we owe our earliest education and our first en¬ 
thusiasms—all our desire, we say, is that the phantom of 
Satan may no longer be able to be termed the baker for the 
ministers of morality and the representatives of the highest 
virtue. Will they appreciate our intention and forgive the 
boldness of our aspirations in consideration of our devoted 
intentions and the sincerity of our faith? 

The devil-making magic which dictated the Grimoire of 
Pope Honorius, the Enchiridion of Leo III., the exorcisms 
of the Ritual, the verdicts of inquisitors, the suits of Lau- 
bardement, the articles of the Veuillot brothers, the books of 
MM. de Falloux, de Montalembert, de Mirville, the magic of 
sorcerers and of pious persons who are not sorcerers, is 
something truly to be condemned in the one and infinitely 
deplored in the other. It is above all to combat these un¬ 
happy aberrations of the human mind by their exposure 
that we have published this book. May it further the holy 
cause! 

But we have not yet exhibited these impious devices in 
all their turpitude, and in all their monstrous folly; we 
must remove the blood-stained filth of perished supersti¬ 
tions; we must tax the annals of demonomania, so as to 
conceive of certain crimes which imagination alone could 
not invent. The Kabbalist Bodin, Israelite by conviction 
and Catholic by necessity, had no other intention in his 
‘‘Demonomania of Sorcerers’’ than to impeach Catholicism 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


315 


in its works, and to undermine it in the greatest of all its 
doctrinal abuses. The treatise of Bodin is profoundly 
maehiavellic, and strikes at the heart of the institutions 
and persons it appears to defend. It would be difficult 
to imagine without reading his vast mass of sanguinary 
and hideous histories, acts of revolting superstition, sen¬ 
tences and executions of stupid ferocity. ‘ ‘ Burn all! ’ ’ the 
inquisitors seemed to cry. ‘ ‘ God will distinguish His own! ’ ’ 
Poor fools, l^sterical women, and idiots, were accordingly 
burned without mercy for the crime of magic, while, at the 
same time, great criminals escaped this unjust and san¬ 
guinary justice. Bodin gives us to understand this by 
recounting such anecdotes as that which he connects with 
the death of Charles IX. It is an almost unknown abom¬ 
ination, and one which has not, so far as we know, tempted 
the skill of any romancer, even at the periods of the most 
feverish and deplorable literature. 

Attacked by a disease of which no physician could dis¬ 
cover the cause or explain the frightful symptoms, King 
Charles IX. was dying. The Queen-Mother, who ruled him 
entirely, and had everything to lose under another reign— 
the Queen-Mother, who has been suspected as the author of 
the disease, because concealed devices and unknown interests 
have always been attributed to her who was capable of any¬ 
thing—consulted her astrologers, and then had recourse to 
the foulest form of magic, the Oracle of the Bleeding Head, 
for the sufferer’s condition grew worse and more desperate 
daily. The infernal operation was performed in the follow¬ 
ing way. A child was selected, of beautiful appearance 
and innocent manners ; he was prepared for his first com¬ 
munion by the almoner of the palace. When the day or 
rather night of the sacrifice arrived, a monk, an apostate 
Jacobin, given over to the occult works of black magic, 
celebrated the Mass of the Devil at midnight, in the sick¬ 
room, and in the presence only of Catherine de Medicis 
and her trusted confidants. It was offered before the image 
of the demon, having a crucifix upside down under its 


316 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


feet, and the sorcerer consecrated two hosts, one black and 
one white. The white was given to the child, who was 
brought in clothed as for baptism, and was murdered on 
the steps of the altar immediately after his communion. 
His head, cut by one blow from the body, was set palpitat¬ 
ing upon the great black host which covered the bottom of 
the paten, and then transported to a table where mysterious 
lamps were burning. The exorcism began, an oracle was 
besought of the demon, and an answer by the mouth of 
the head to a secret question which the king dared not 
make aloud, and had confided to no one. A strange and 
feeble voice, which had nothing human about it, was pres¬ 
ently heard in the poor little martyr’s head, saying in 
Latin: Vim patior; “I am forced.” At this reply, which 
doubtless announced to the sick man that hell no longer 
protected him, a horrible trembling seized the monarch, 
his arms stiffened, and he cried in a hoarse voice: ‘ ‘ Away 
with that head! Away with that head! ’ ’ and so continued 
screaming till he gave up the ghost. His attendants, who 
were not in the confidence of the frightful mystery, be¬ 
lieved that he was pursued by the phantom of Coligny, and 
that he saw the head of the illustrious admiral; what tor¬ 
mented the dying man was not, however, a remorse, but a 
hopeless terror and an anticipated Hell. 

This darksome magical legend of Bodin recalls the 
abominable practices and deserved fate of Gilles de Laval, 
lord of Retz, who passed from asceticism to black magic, 
and offered the most revolting sacrifices to conciliate the 
favour of Satan. This madman confessed at his trial 
that Satan had frequently appeared to him, but had always 
deceived him by promises of treasures which he had never 
given. It transpired from the judicial informations that 
several hundred unfortunate children had falleh victims to 
the cupidity and atrocious fancies of this monster. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


317 


CHAPTER XYI 

WITCHCRAFT AND SPELLS 

What sorcerers and necromancers sought above all in their 
evocations of the impure spirit was that magnetic power 
which is the possession of the true adept, but was desired 
by them only that they might shamefully abuse it. The 
folly of sorcerers was an evil folly, and one of their chief 
ends was the power of bewitchments or harmful influences. 
We have set down in our Doctrine w r hat we think upon the 
subject of bewitchment, and how it seems to us a dangerous 
and real power. The true magus bewitches without cere¬ 
monial, and by his mere reprobation, those whom he con¬ 
demns and considers it necessary to punish; his forgive¬ 
ness even bewitches those who do him wrong, and never do 
the enemies of initiates carry far the impunity of their 
injustice. We have ourselves witnessed numerous examples 
of this fatal law. The murderers of martyrs always perish 
miserably, and the adepts are martyrs of intelligence; 
Providence seems to scorn those who despise them, and to 
slay those who would deprive them of life. The legend of 
the Wandering Jew is the popular poetry of this arcanum. 
A wise man was driven by a nation to his doom; it bade 
him * ‘ Go on! ’ ’ when he wdshed to rest for a moment. What 
is the consequence? A similar condemnation overtakes the 
nation itself; it is proscribed bodily; men have cried to it: 
‘ ‘ Get on ! Get on! ” for centuries, and it has found no pity 
and no repose. 

A man of learning had a wife whom he loved wildly and 
passionately in the exaltation of his tenderness; he honoured, 
her with blind confidence, and trusted her entirely. Vain 
of her beauty and understanding, this woman became 
jealous of her husband’s superiority, and began to hate him. 
Some time after she deserted him, disgracing herself with 


318 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


an old, ugly, stupid, and immoral man. This was the be¬ 
ginning of her punishment, but it did not end there. The 
man of learning solemnly pronounced the following sen¬ 
tence upon her: ‘‘I take back your understanding and 
your beauty. ’ ’ A year after she was no longer recognised 
by those who had known her; she had lost her plumpness, 
and reflected in her countenance the hideousness of her new 
affections. Three years later she was ugly; seven years 
later she was deranged. This happened in our own time, 
and we were acquainted with both persons. 

The magus condemns, after the manner of the skilful 
physician, and for this reason there is no appeal from his 
sentence when it has once been pronounced against a guilty 
person. There are no ceremonies and no invocations; he 
simply abstains from eating at the same table, or if forced 
to do so, he neither accepts nor offers salt. But the be¬ 
witchments of sorcerers are of another kind, and may be 
compared to an actual poisoning of some current of astral \ 
light. They exalt their will by cermonies till it becomes 
venomous at a distance; but, as we have observed in our 
Doctrine, they more often expose themselves, to be the first 
that are killed by their infernal machinery. Let us here 
stigmatise some of their guilty proceedings. They procure 
the hair or garments of the person whom they seek to exe¬ 
crate; they next select some animal, which seems to them 
symbolic of the person, and, by means of the hair or gar¬ 
ments, they place it in magnetic connection with him or 
her. They give it the same name, and then slay it with 
one blow of the magic knife. They cut open the breast, tear 
out the heart, wrap it, while still palpitating, in the mag¬ 
netised objects, and hourly, for the space of three days, 
they drive nails, red hot pins, or long thorns therein, pro¬ 
nouncing maledictions upon the name of the bewitched 
person. They are persuaded, and often rightly, that the 
victim of their infamous operations experiences as many 
tortures as if his own heart had been pierced at all points. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


319 


He begins to waste away, and after a time dies of an un¬ 
known disease. 

Another bewitchment, made use of in country places, 
consists in consecration of nails to works of hatred by 
means of the stinking fumigations of Saturn and invoca¬ 
tions of the evil genii; then, in following the footsteps 
of the person whom it is sought to torment, and nailing 
crosswise every imprint of his feet which can be traced 
upon the earth or sand. Yet another and more abominable 
practice. A fat toad is selected; it is baptised; the name 
and surname of the person to be accursed is given it; it is 
made to swallow a consecrated host, over which the formulae 
of execration have been pronounced. The animal is then 
wrapped in the magnetised objects, tied with the hairs of 
the victim, upon which the operator has previously spat, 
and buried at the threshold of the bewitched person’s door, 
or at some point where he is obliged to pass daily. The 
elementary spirit of the toad will become a nightmare 
and vampire, haunting the dreams of the victim, unless, 
indeed, he should know how to send it back to the 
operator. 

Let us pass now to bewitchments by waxen images. The 
sorcerers of the middle ages, eager to please by their sac¬ 
rileges him whom they regarded as their master, mixed 
baptismal oil and the ashes of consecrated hosts with a 
modicum of wax. Apostate priests were never wanting to 
deliver them the treasures of the Church. With the ac¬ 
cursed wax they formed an image as much as possible re¬ 
sembling the person whom they desired to bewitch. They 
clothed this image with garments similar to his, they ad¬ 
ministered to it the sacraments which he received, then they 
called down upon its head all maledictions which could ex¬ 
press the hatred of the sorcerer, inflicting daily imaginary 
tortures upon it, so as to reach and torment by sympathy 
the person represented by the image. This bewitchment is 
more infallible if the hair, blood, and, above all, a tooth 
of the victim can be procured. It was this which gave rise 


320 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


to the proverbial saying: You have a tooth against me. 
There is also bewitchment by the glance, called the jetta- 
tura, or evil eye, in Italy. During our civil wars, a shop¬ 
keeper had the misfortune to denounce one of his neigh¬ 
bours, who, after a period of detention, was set at liberty, 
but with his position lost. His sole vengeance was to pass 
twice daily the shop of his denouncer, whom he regarded 
fixedly, saluted, and went on. Some little time after, the 
shopkeeper, unable to bear the torment of this glance any 
longer, sold his goods at a loss, and changed his neighbour¬ 
hood, leaving no address. In a word, he was ruined. 

A threat is a real bewitchment, because it acts power¬ 
fully on the imagination, above all, when the latter receives 
with facility the belief in an occult and unlimited power. 
The terrible menace of hell, that bewitchment of humanity 
during so many centuries, has created more nightmares, 
more nameless diseases, more furious madness, than all vices 
and all excesses combined. This is what the Hermetic 
artists of the middle ages represented by the incredible and 
unheard-of monsters which they carved at the doors of 
basilicas. But bewitchment by threat produces an effect 
altogether contrary to the intention of the operator when 
it is evidently a vain threat, when it does outrage to the 
legitimate pride of the menaced person, and consequently 
provokes his resistance, or, finally, when it is ridiculous by 
its atrocity. The sectaries of hell have discredited heaven. 
Say to a reasonable man that equilibrium is the law of 
motion and life, and that liberty, which is moral equilib¬ 
rium, rests upon an eternal and immutable distinction be¬ 
tween true and false, between good and bad; tell him that, 
endowed as he is with free will, he must place himself by 
his works in the empire of truth and goodness, or relapse 
eternally, like the rock of Sisyphus, into the chaos of false¬ 
hood and evil; then he will understand the doctrine, and if 
you term truth and goodness heaven, falsehood and evil 
hell, he will believe in your heaven and hell, over which 
the divine ideal rests calm, perfect, and inaccessible to 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


321 


either wrath or offence, because he will understand that if 
in principle hell be eternal as liberty, it cannot in fact be 
more than a temporary agony for souls, because it is an 
expiation, and the idea of expiation necessarily supposes 
that of reparation and destruction of evil. This much said, 
not with dogmatic intention, which is outside our province, 
but to indicate the moral and reasonable remedy for the be¬ 
witchment of consciences by the terrors of the life beyond, 
let us speak of the means of escaping the baleful influences 
of human wrath. The first among all is to be reasonable 
and just, giving no opportunity or excuse to anger. A law¬ 
ful indignation is greatly to be feared; make haste therefore 
to acknowledge and expiate your faults. Should anger 
persist after that, then it certainly proceeds from vice; 
seek to know what vice, and unite yourself strongly to the 
magnetic currents of the opposite virtue. The bewitchment 
will then have no further power upon you. Wash carefully 
the clothes which you have finished with before giving them 
away; otherwise, bum them; never use a garment which 
has belonged to an unknown person without purifying it 
by water, sulphur, and such aromatics as camphor, incense, 
amber, &c. 

A great means of resisting bewitchment is not to fear it; 
it acts after the manner of contagious maladies. In times 
of epidemic, the terror-struck are the first to be attacked. 
The secret of not fearing an evil is not to think about it, 
and my advice is completely disinterested since I give it in 
a book on magic of which I am the author, when I strongly 
urge upon persons who are nervous, feeble, credulous, 
hysterical, superstitious devotees, foolish, without energy 
and without will, never to open a book on magic, and to 
close this one if they have opened it, to turn a deaf ear to 
those who talk of the occult sciences, to deride them, never 
to believe in them, and to drink water, as said the great 
pantagruelist magician, the excellent cure of Meudon. 

As for the wise—and it is time that we turned to them 
after espousing the cause of the foolish—they have scarcely 


322 


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any sorceries to fear save those of fortune, but seeing that 
they are priests and physicians, they may be called upon to 
cure the bewitched, and this should be their method of pro¬ 
cedure. They must persuade a bewitched person to do 
some act of goodness to his bewitcher, render him some 
service which he cannot refuse, and lead him directly or 
otherwise to the communion of salt. A person who believes 
himself bewitched by the execration and interment of the 
toad must carry about him a living toad in a horn box. 
For the bewitchment of the pierced heart, the afflicted in¬ 
dividual must be made to eat a lamb’s heart seasoned with 
sage and onion, and to carry a talisman of Venus or of the 
moon in a satchel filled with camphor and salt. For be¬ 
witchment by the waxen figure, a more perfect figure must 
be made, as much as possible in the likeness of the person; 
seven talismans must be hung round the neck; it must be 
set in the middle of a great pantacle representing the 
pentagram, and must each day be rubbed slightly with a 
mixture of oil and balm, after reciting the Conjuration of 
the Four to turn aside the influence of elementary spirits. 
At the end of seven days the image must be burnt in con¬ 
secrated fire, and one may rest assured that the figure 
fabricated by the bewitcher will at the same moment lose 
all its virtue. 

We have already mentioned the sympathetic medicine of 
Paracelsus, who medicated waxen limbs and operated upon 
the discharges of blood from wounds for the cure of the 
wounds themselves. This system permitted the employ¬ 
ment of more than usually violent remedies, and his chief 
specifics were sublimate and vitriol. We believe that 
homoeopathy is a reminiscence of the theories of Paracelsus 
and a return to his wise practices. But we shall follow up 
this subject in a special treatise exclusively consecrated to 
occult medicine. 

Contracts by parents forestalling the future of their chil¬ 
dren are bewitchments which cannot be too strongly con¬ 
demned ; children dedicated in white, for example, scarcely 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


323 


ever prosper; those who were formerly dedicated to celi¬ 
bacy fell commonly into debauch, or ended in despair and 
madness. Man is not permitted to do violence to destiny, 
still less to impose bonds upon the lawful use of liberty. 

As a supplement or appendix to this chapter, we will 
add a few words about mandragores and androids, which 
several writers on magic confound with the waxen images 
serving the purposes of bewitchment. The natural mandra- 
gore is a filamentous root which, more or less, presents as a 
w T hole either the figure of a man, or that of the virile 
members. It is slightly narcotic, and an aphrodisiacal 
virtue was ascribed to it by the ancients, who represented 
it as being sought by Thessalian sorcerers for the composi¬ 
tion of philtres. Is this root the umbilical vestige of our 
terrestrial origin? We dare not seriously affirm it, but all 
the same it is certain that man came out of the slime of 
the earth, and his first appearance must have been in the 
form of a rough sketch. The analogies of nature make this 
notion necessarily admissible, at least as a possibility. The 
first men were, in this case, a family of gigantic, sensitive 
mandragores, animated by the sun, who rooted themselves 
up from the earth; this assumption not only does not ex¬ 
clude, but, on the contrary, positively supposes, creative will 
and the providential co-operation of a first cause, which we 
have reason to call God. 

Some alchemists, impressed by this idea, speculated on 
the culture of the mandragore, and experimented in the 
artificial reproduction of a soil sufficiently fruitful and a sun 
sufficiently active to humanise the said root, and thus create 
men without the concurrence of the female. Others, who 
regarded humanity as the synthesis of animals, despaired 
about vitalising the mandragore, but they crossed monstrous 
pairs and projected human seed into animal earth, only for 
the production of shameful crimes and barren deformities. 
The third method of making the android was by galvanic 
machinery. One of these almost intelligent automata was at¬ 
tributed to Albert us Magnus, and it is said that St. Thomas 


324 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


destroyed it with one blow from a stick because he was 
perplexed by its answers. This story is an allegory; the 
android was primitive scholasticism, which was broken by 
the Summa of St. Thomas, the daring innovator who first 
substituted the absolute law of reason for arbitrary divin¬ 
ity, by formulating that axiom which we cannot repeat too 
often, since it comes from such a master: “A thing is not 
just because God wills 4t, but God wills it because it is 
just.” 

The real and serious android of the ancients was a secret 
which they kept hidden from all eyes, and Mesmer was the 
first who dared to divulge it; it was the extension of the 
will of the magus into another body, organised and served 
by an elementary spirit; in more modem and intelligible 
terms, it was a magnetic subject. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


325 


CHAPTER XVII 

THE WRITING OF THE STARS 

We have finished with infernus, and we breathe the fresh 
air freely as we return to daylight after traversing the 
crypts of black magic. Get thee behind us, Satan! We re¬ 
nounce thee, with all thy pomps and works, and still more 
with all thy deformities, thy meanness, thy nothingness, 
thy deception! The Great Initiator beheld thee fall from 
heaven like a thunderbolt. The Christian legend changes 
thee, making thee set thy dragon’s head mildly beneath 
the foot of the mother of God. Thou art for us the image 
of unintelligence and mystery; thou art unreason and blind 
fanaticism; thou are the inquisition and its hell; thou 
art the god of Torquemada and Alexander VI; thou 
hast become the sport of children, and thy final place 
is at the side of Polichinello; henceforth thou art only a 
grotesque character in our foreign theatres, and a means of 
instruction in a few so-called religious markets. 

After the sixteenth key of the Tarot, which represents 
the downfall of Satan’s temple, we find on the seventeenth 
leaf a magnificent and gracious emblem. A naked woman, 
a young and immortal maid, pours out upon the earth the 
juice of universal life from two ewers, one of gold and one 
of silver; hard by there is a flowering shrub, on which rests 
the butterfly of Psyche; above her shines an eight-pointed 
star with seven other stars around it. “I believe in eter¬ 
nal life!” Such is the final article of the Christian symbol, 
and this alone is a profession of faith. 

The ancients, when they compared the calm and peaceful 
immensity of heaven, thronged with innumerable lights, to 
the tumults and darlmess of this world, believed themselves 
to have discovered in that beautiful book, written in letters 
of gold, the final utterance of the enigma of destinies; in 


326 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


imagination they drew lines of correspondence between these 
shining points of the divine writing, and it is said that the 
first constellations marked out by the shepherds of Chaldea 
were also the first letters of the kabbalistic alphabet. These 
characters, expressed first of all by means of lines, then 
enclosed in hieroglyphic figures, would, according to M. 
Moreau de Dammartin, author of a very curious treatise on 
alphabetic characters, have determined the ancient magi in 
the choice of the Tarot figures, which are taken by this man 
of learning, as by ourselves, for an essentially hieratic and 
primitive book. Thus, in his opinion, the Chinese tsew, the 
Hebrew aleph, and the Greek alpha, expressed hieroglyph- 
ically by the figure of the juggler, would be borrowed from 
the constellation of the crane, in the vicinity of the celestial 
fish, a sign of the eastern hemisphere. The Chinese tcheou, 
the Hebrew beth, and the Latin B, corresponding to Pope 
Joan or Juno, were formed after the head of the Ram; the 
Chinese yn, the Hebrew ghimel, and the Latin G, represented 
by the Empress, would be derived from the constellation of 
the Great Bear, &c. The kabbalist Gaffarel, whom we have 
cited more than once, erected a planisphere, in which all 
the constellations form Hebrew letters; but we confess that 
the configurations are frequently arbitrary in the highest 
degree, and upon the indication of a single star, for exam¬ 
ple, we can see no reason why a ^ should be traced rather 
than a ^ or a ^ four stars will also give indifferently a 
or pj as well as an ^. We are therefore deterred from repro¬ 
ducing a copy of Gaffarel’s planisphere, examples of which 
are, moreover, not exceedingly rare. It was included in the 
work of Montfaucon on the religions and superstitions of 
the world, and also in the treatise upon magic published by 
the mystic Eckartshausen. Scholars, moreover, are un¬ 
agreed upon the configuration of the letters of the primitive 
alphabet. The Italian Tarot, of which the lost Gothic orig¬ 
inals are much to be regretted, connects by the disposition 
of its figures with the Hebrew alphabet in use after the cap¬ 
tivity, and known as the Assyrian alphabet; but there are 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


327 


fragments of anterior Tarots where the disposition is dif¬ 
ferent. There should be no conjecture in matters of re¬ 
search, and hence we suspend our judgment in the expecta¬ 
tion of fresh and more conclusive discoveries. As to the 
alphabet of the stars, we believe it to be intuitive, like the 
configuration of clouds, which seem to assume any form that 
imagination lends them. Star-groups are like points) in 
geomancy or the pasteboards of cartomancy. They are a 
pretext for self-magnetising, an instrument to fix and deter¬ 
mine native intuition. Thus, a kabbalist, familiar with 
mystic hieroglyphics, will perceive signs in the stars which 
will not be discerned by a simple shepherd, but the shep¬ 
herd, on his part, will observe combinations that will escape 
the kabbalist. Country people substitute a rake for the 
belt and sword of Orion, while a kabbalist recognises in the 
same sign as a whole all the mysteries of Ezekiel, the ten 
sephiroth arranged in a triadic manner, a central triangle 
formed of four stars, then a line of three stars making the 
jod, and the two figures taken together expressing the mys¬ 
teries of Bereschith; finally, four stars constituting the 
wheels of Mercavah, and completing the divine chariot. 
Looked at after another manner, and arranging other ideal 
lines, he will notice a well-formed ghimel placed above a 
jod y in a large daleth, a symbol typifying the strife between 
good and evil, with the final triumph of good. As a fact, 
the ghimel superposed on the jod is the triad produced by 
unity, the manifestation of the divine Word, whilst the re¬ 
versed daleth is the triad composed of the evil duad multi¬ 
plied by itself. 


328 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 



Thus regarded, the figure of Orion would be identical with 
that of the angel Michael doing battle with the dragon, and 
the appearance of this sign, so understood, would be, for the 
kabbalist, a portent of victory and happiness. 

A long contemplation of the sky exalts the imagination, 
and then the stars respond to our thoughts. The lines 
drawn mentally from one to another by the primitive ob¬ 
servers must have given man his first notions of geometry. 
Accordingly, as our soul is troubled or at rest, the stars 
seem burning with menace or sparkling with hope. The 
sky is thus the mirror of the human soul, and when we think 
that we are reading in the stars it is in ourselves we read. 

Gaffarel, applying the prophesies of celestial writing to 
the destinies of empires, says that not in vain did the 
ancients place all signs of evil augury in the northern region 
of the sky; calamities have been in all ages regarded as 
coming from the north to spread themselves over the earth 
by the invasion of the south. “For this reason,” he tells 



TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


329 


us, “the ancients represented in the northern parts of the 
heaven a serpent or dragon near two bears, since these 
animals are the true hieroglyphs of tyranny, pillage, and 
all oppression. As a fact, glance at history, and you will 
see that all great devastations proceed from the north. The 
Assyrians or Chaldeans, incited by Nabuchodonosor or 
Salmanasor, exhibited this truth in abundance by the de¬ 
struction of the most splendid and most holy temple and 
city in the universe, and by the complete overthrow of a 
people whom God himself had taken under his special pro¬ 
tection, of whom he specially termed himself father. And 
that other Jerusalem, Rome the blessed, has not it, too, ex¬ 
perienced frequently the violence of this evil northern race, 
when it beheld its altars demolished and the towers of its 
proud edifices brought level with the foundations, through 
the cruelty of Alaric, Genseric, Attila, and the other princes 
of the Goths, Huns, Vandals, and Alain. . . . Very prop¬ 
erly, therefore, in the secrets of this celestial writing, do 
we read calamities and misfortunes on the northern side, 
since a septentrione pandetur omne malum. Now, the word 
which we translate by pandetur, is also equivalent of 
the depingetur or scribetur, and the prophecy signifies 
equally: All the misfortunes of the world are written in the 
northern sky.” 

We have transcribed this passage at length, because it is 
not without application in our day, when the north once 
more seems to threaten Europe but it is also the destiny 
of hoar-frost to be melted by the sun, and the darkness 
disappears of itself when the light manifests. Such is our 
final word of prophecy, and the secret of the future. Gaf- 
farel adds some prognostics drawn from the stars, as, for 
example, the progressive weakening of the Ottoman empire; 
but, as already said, his constellated letters are exceedingly 
arbitrary. He states, for the rest, that he derived his pre¬ 
dictions from a Hebrew kabbalist, Rabbi Chomer, but does 
not himself pretend to understand him especially well. 


* This passage was written before the Crimean War. 



330 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


Here follows the table of magical characters traced after 
the zodiacal constellations by the ancient astrologers; each 
of them represents the name of a genius, be he good or evil. 
It will be known that the signs of the Zodiac correspond to 
various celestial influences, and consequently signify an 
annual alternative of good or evil. 



The names of the genii designated by the above characters 
are:—For the Ram, Sataaran and Sarahiel; for the Bull, 
Bagdal and Araziel; for the Twins, Sagras and Saraiel; 
for the Crab, Rahdar and Phakiel ; for the Lion, Sagham 
and Seratiel; for the Virgin, Iadara and Schaltiel; for the 
Balance, Grasgarben and Hadakiel; for the Scorpion, 
Riehol and Saissaiel; for the Archer, Vhnori and Saritaiel; 
for the Goat, Sagdalon and Semakiel; for the Water- 
Bearer, Archer and Ssakmakiel; for the Fishes, Rasamasa 
and Vacabiel. 

The wise man, who would read the sky, must observe also 
the days of the moon, the influence of which is very great 



TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


331 


in astrology. The moon successively attracts and repels the 
magnetic fluid of the earth, and thus produces the ebb and 
flow of the sea; we must, therefore, be well acquainted with 
its phases and be able to distinguish its days and hours. 
The new moon is propitious to the beginning of all magical 
works; from first quarter to full moon its influence is 
warm; from full moon to third quarter it is dry; and from 
third quarter to last it is cold. Here follow the special 
characters of all the days of the moon, distinguished by the 
twenty-two Tarot keys and by the signs of the seven planets. 

1. The Juggler, or Magus. 

The first day of the moon is that of the creation of the 
moon itself. This day is consecrated to mental enterprises, 
and should be favourable for opportune innovations. 

2. Pope Joan, or Occult Science. 

The second day, the genius of which is Enediel, was the 
fifth of creation, for the moon was made on the fourth day. 
The birds and fishes, created on this day, are the living 
hieroglyphs of magical analogies and of the universal doc¬ 
trine of Hermes. The water and air, which were thereby 
filled with the forms of the Word, are the elementary figures 
of the ^Mercury of the Sages, that is, of intelligence and 
speech. This day is propitious to revelations, initiations, 
and great discoveries of science. 

3. The Celestial Mother, or Empress. 

The third day was that of man's creation. So is the 
moon called the Mother in Kabbalah when it is represented 
in association with the number 3. This day is favourable 
to generation, and generally to all productions, whether of 
body or mind. 

4. The Emperor, or Ruler. 

The fourth day is baleful; it was that of the birth 
of Cain; but it is favourable to unjust and tyrannical 
enterprises. 


332 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


5. The Pope, or Hierophant . 

The fifth day is fortunate; it was that of the birth of 
Abel. 

6. The Lover, or Liberty. 

The sixth is a day of pride; it was that of the birth of 
Lameeh, who said unto his wives: “I have slain a man to 
my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall 
be avenged sevenfold, truly Lameeh seventy and seven¬ 
fold.” This day is propitious for conspiracies and re¬ 
bellions. 

7. The Chariot. 

On the seventh day, birth of Hebron, who gave his name 
to the first of the seven sacred cities of Israel. A day of 
religion, prayers, and success. 

8. Justice. 

Murder of Abel. Day of expiation. 

9. The Old Man, or Hermit. 

Birth of Methuselah. Day of blessing for children. 

10. Ezekiel f s Wheel of Fortune. 

Birth of Nabuchodonosor. Reign of the Beast. Fatal 
day. 

11. Strength. 

Birth of Noah. Visions on this day are deceitful, but it 
is one of health and long life for children born on it. 

12. The Victim, or Hanged Man. 

Birth of Samuel. Prophetic and kabbalistic day, fav¬ 
ourable to the fulfilment of the great work. 

13. Death. 

Birthday of Canaan, the accursed son of Cham. Baleful 
day and fatal number. 

14. The Angel of Temperance. 

Blessing of Noah on the fourteenth day of the moon. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


333 


This day is governed by the angel Cassiel of the hierarchy 
of Uriel. 

15. Typhon, or the Devil. 

Birth of Ishmael. Day of reprobation and exile. 

16. The Blasted Tower. 

Birthday of Jacob and Esau; the day also of Jacob’s 
predestination, to Esau’s ruin. 

17. The Glittering Star. 

Fire from heaven burns Sodom and Gomorrah. Day of 
salvation for the good, and ruin for the wicked; on a 
Saturday dangerous. It is under the dominion of the 
Scorpion. 

18. The Moon. 

Birth of Isaac. Wife’s triumph. Day of conjugal af¬ 
fection and good hope. 

19. The Sun. 

Birth of Pharaoh. A beneficent or fatal day for the great 
of earth, according to the different merits of the great. 

20. The Judgment. 

Birth of Jonas, the instrument of God’s judgment. Pro¬ 
pitious for divine revelations. 

21. The World. 

Birth of Saul, material royalty. Danger to mind and 
reason. 

22. Influence of Saturn. 

Birth of Job. Day of trial and suffering. 

23. Influence of Venus. 

Birth of Benjamin. Day of preference and tenderness. 

24. Influence of Jupiter. 

Birth of Japhet. 

25. Influence of Mercury. 

Tenth plague of Egypt. 


334 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


26. Influence of Mars. 

Deliverance of the Israelites, and passage of the Red Sea. 

27. Influence of Diana, or Hecate. 

Splendid victory achieved by Judas Maccabeus. 

28. Influence of the Sun. 

Samson carries off the gates of Gaza. Day of strength 
and deliverance. 

29. The Fool of the Tarot. 

Day of failure and miscarriage in all things. 

We see from this rabbinical table, which John Belot and 
others borrowed from the Hebrew kabbalists, that these an¬ 
cient masters concluded a posteriori from facts to presum¬ 
able influences, which is completely within the logic of the 
occult sciences. We see also what diverse significations are 
included in the twenty-two keys which form the universal 
alphabet of the Tarot, together with the truth of our asser¬ 
tions, when we say that all secrets of the Kabbalah and 
magic, all mysteries of the elder world, all science of the 
patriarchs, all historical traditions of primeval times, are 
enclosed in this hieroglyphic book of Thoth, Enoch, or 
Cadmus. 

An exceedingly simple method of finding celestial horo¬ 
scopes by onomancy is that which we are about to describe; 
it harmonises Gaffarel with our own views, and its results 
are most astounding in their exactitude and depth. Take 
a black card; cut therein the name of the person for whom 
you wish to make the consultation; place this card at the 
end of a tube which must diminish towards the eye of the 
observer; then look through it alternately towards the four 
cardinal points, beginning at the east and finishing at the 
north. Take note of all the stars which you see through 
the letters; convert these letters into numbers, and, with 
the sum of the addition written down in the same manner, 
renew the operation; then compute the number of stars 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


335 


yon have; next, adding this number to that of the name, 
again cast up and write the sum of the two numbers in 
Hebrew characters. Again renew the operation; inscribe 
separately the stars which you have noticed; then find the 
names of all the stars in the planisphere; classify them ac¬ 
cording to their size and brightness, choosing the most bril¬ 
liant of all as the pole-star of your astrological operation; 
then find, in the Egyptian planisphere, the names and fig¬ 
ures of the genii to which these stars belong. A good 
example of the planisphere will be found in the atlas to the 
great work of Dupuis. You will then know the fortunate 
and unfortunate signs which enter into the name of the per¬ 
son, and what is their influence; whether in childhood, 
which is the name traced at the east; in youth, which is the 
name traced at the south; in mature age, which is the name 
at the west; in decline, which is the name at the north; or, 
finally, during the whole life, obtained from the stars which 
enter into the entire number formed by the addition of the 
letters and stars. This astrological operation is simple, easy, 
and requires few calculations; it connects with the highest 
antiquity, and belongs evidently to primitive patriarchal 
magic, as will be seen by studying the works of Gaffarel 
and his master Rabbi Chomer. Onomantic astrology was 
practised by the old Hebrew kabbalists, as is proved from 
their observations preserved by Rabbi Chomer, Rabbi Kapol, 
Rabbi Abjudan, and other masters in Kabbalah. The men¬ 
aces of the prophets uttered against various nations were 
based upon the characters of the stars found vertically over 
them in the permanent correspondence of the celestial and 
terrestrial spheres. Thus, by writing in the sky of Greece 
the Hebrew name of that country ^ or ^ and translating 
the numbers, they obtained the word signifies 

destroyed, desolated. 


336 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


CIU 

2 2 8 


CHARAB. 

Destroyed, Desolated. 
Sum 12. 


c i v 

5 6 1 

JAVAN. 

Greece. 
Sum 12. 


Hence they inferred that after a cycle of twelve periods 
Greece would be destroyed and desolated. A short time 
before the sack of Jerusalem and its temple by Nabuzardan, 
the kabbalists remarked eleven stars disposed in the fol¬ 
lowing manner vertically above the temple:— 

.y. Jf, J(, «U. JL 4L Jfc JL 

W TT W TT 1v TP Tv* TP 

# 

# # 

All these entered into the word wr ^f en from south 

to west, the term signifying reprobation and abandonment 
without mercy. The sum of the number of the letters is 
423, exactly the period of the duration of the temple. De¬ 
struction threatened the empires of Persia and Assyria, in 
the shape of four vertical stars which entered into the three 
letters Poev, and the fatal period indicated was 208 
years. So, also four stars announced to the kabbalistic rab¬ 
bins of another period the fall and division of the empire 
of Alexander; they entered into the word Parad, to 
divide, 284, the number of this word, indicating the entire 
duration of this empire, both as to root and branches. Ac¬ 
cording tai Rabbi Chomer, the destinies of the Ottoman 
power at Constantinople would be fixed and announced be¬ 
forehand by four stars, entering into the word Caah, 
signifying to be feeble, weak, and drawing to its end. The 




TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


337 


stars being more brilliant in the letter ^, indicated a capital, 
and gave it the numerical value of a thousand. The three 
letters combined make 1025, which must be computed from 
the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II., a calculation 
which still holds out several centuries of existence to the 
enfeebled empire of the sultans, at present sustained by all 
Europe combined. The Mane Thecel Phares which Bal¬ 
thazar, in his intoxication, saw written on the wall of his 
palace by the glare of the torches, was an onomantic in¬ 
tuition similar to that of the rabbins. Initiated, no doubt, 
by his Hebrew diviners in the reading of the stars, Balthazar 
operated mechanically and instinctively upon the lamps of 
his nocturnal feast, as he would upon the stars of heaven. 
The three words which he had formed in his imagination 
soon became indelible to his eyes, and paled all the lights of 
his banquet. It was easy to predict an end like that of 
Sardanapalus to a king who abandoned himself to orgies in 
a besieged town. 

In conclusion, we have said, and we repeat, that magnetic 
intuitions alone give value and reality to all kabbalistic and 
astrological calculations, puerile possibly, and completely 
arbitrary, when made without inspiration, by cold curiosity, 
and in the absence of a powerful will. 


338 


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CHAPTER XVIII 

PHILTRES AND MAGNETISM. 

Let us now adventure in Thessaly, the country of enchant¬ 
ments. Here was Apuleius deluded like the companions of 
Ulysses, and underwent a shameful metamorphosis. Here 
all is magical,—the birds that fly, the insects humming in 
the grass, even the trees and flowers; here in the moon¬ 
light are brewed those poisons which compel love; here 
spells are devised by the stryges to render them young and 
lovely like the Charites. 0 all ye youths, beware! 

The art of poisoning the reason, or of philtres, seems, as 
a fact, if traditions may be trusted, to have developed its 
venomous efflorescence more abundantly in Thessaly than 
elsewhere; there, also, magnetism played its most important 
part, for exciting or narcotic plants, bewitching and harmful 
animal substances, derived all their power from enchant¬ 
ments—that is to say, sacrifices accomplished and words 
pronounced by sorcerers when preparing philtres and bev¬ 
erages. Stimulating substances, and those in which phos¬ 
phorus predominates, are naturally aphrodisiacal. Any¬ 
thing which acts strongly on the nervous system may de¬ 
termine passional exaltation, and when a skilful and per¬ 
severing will knows how to direct and influence these 
natural tendencies, it can make use of the passions of others 
to the profit of its own, and will soon reduce the most in¬ 
dependent personalities into instruments of its pleasures. 
From such influence it behoves us to seek protection, and to 
give arms to the weak is our purpose in writing this 
chapter. These, in the first place, are the devices of the 
enemy. The man who seeks to compel love—we attribute 
such unlawful manoeuvres to men only, assuming that 
women can never have need of them—must in the first 
place make himself observed by the person whom he desires. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


339 


and must contrive to impress her imagination. He must 
inspire her with admiration, astonishment, terror, even 
with horror, failing all other resources; but at any cost he 
must set himself apart in her eyes from the rank of ordi¬ 
nary men, and, with or against her will, must make himself 
a place in her memory, her apprehensions, her dreams. The 
type of Lovelace is certainly not the admitted ideal of the 
type of Clarissa, but she thinks of him incessantly to con¬ 
demn him, to execrate him, to compassionate his victims, to 
desire his conversion and repentance; next she seeks his 
regeneration by devotion and forgiveness; later on secret 
vanity whispers to her how grand it would be to fix the 
affections of a Lovelace, to love him, and yet to withstand 
him. Behold, then, Clarissa surprised into loving Lovelace! 
She chides herself, blushes, renounces a thousand times, and 
loves him a thousand more; then, at the supreme moment, 
she forgets to resist him. Had angels been women, as repre¬ 
sented by modern mysticism, Jehovah, indeed, would have 
acted as a wise and prudent father by placing Satan at the 
gate of heaven. It is a serious imposition on the self-love 
of some amiable women to find that man fundamentally 
good and honourable who enamoured them when they 
thought him a scapegrace. The angel leaves him disdain¬ 
fully saying: “You are not the devil!” Play the devil as 
well as you can, if you wish to allure an angel. No license 
is possible to a virtuous man. ‘‘For what does he take u sV’ 
say the women. * 1 Does he think us less strict than he is ? ” 
But everything is forgiven in a rascal. “What else could 
you expect ? ’ ’ The part of a man with high principles and 
of rigid character can never be a power save with women 
whom no one wishes to fascinate; the rest, without excep¬ 
tion, adore the reprobates. It is quite the opposite with 
men, and this contrast has made modesty woman’s dower, 
the first and most natural of her coquetries. One of the 
distinguished physicians and most amiable men of learning 
in London told me last year that one of his blients, when 
leaving the house of a distinguished lady, observed to him: 


340 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


“I have just had a strange compliment from the Mar¬ 
chioness of —-. Looking me straight in the face, she 

said: ‘Sir, you will not make me flinch before your ter¬ 
rible glance; you have the eyes of Satan.’ ” “Well,” an¬ 
swered the doctor, smiling, “you, of course, put your arms 
round her neck and embraced her?” “Not at all; I was 
overwhelmed by her sudden onslaught. ” “ Beware how you 
call on her again, then, my friend, you will have fallen 
deeply in her estimation! ’ ’ 

The office of executioner is commonly said to go down 
from father to son. Do executioners really have children ? 
Undoubtedly, as they never fail to get wives. Marat had a 
mistress who loved him tenderly, he, the loathsome leper; 
but still it was that terrible Marat, who caused the world 
to tremble. Love, above all in a woman, may be termed a 
veritable hallucination; for want of a prudent motive, it 
will frequently select an absurd one. Deceive Joconde for 
a baboon, what horror!—Ah! but supposing it is a horror, 
why not perpetrate it? It must be pleasant to be occa¬ 
sionally guilty of a small abomination! 

Given this transcendental knowledge of the woman, an¬ 
other* device can be adopted to attract her notice—not 
to concern oneself with her, or to do so in a way which is 
humiliating to her self-love, treating her as a child and 
deriding all notion of paying court to her. The parts are 
then reversed; she will move heaven and earth to tempt 
you; she will initiate you into secrets which women keep 
back; she will vest and unvest before you, making such 
observations as: “Between women—among old friends—I 
have no fear about you—you are not a man for me,” &c. 
Then she will watch your expression; if she find it calm and 
indifferent, she will be indignant; she will approach you 
under some pretext, brush you with her tresses, permit her 
bodice to slip open. Women, in such cases, occasionally 
will risk a violence, not out of desire, but from curiosity, 
from impatience, and from provocation. A magician of 
any spirit will need no other philtres than these; he will 




TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


341 


also use flattering words, magnetic breathings, slight but 
voluptuous contacts, by a kind of hypocrisy, and as if un¬ 
conscious. Those who resort to potions are old, idiotic, 
ugly, impotent. Where, indeed, is the use of the philtre? 
Any one who is truly a man has always at his disposal 
the means of making himself loved, providing he does not 
seek to usurp a place which is occupied. It would be a 
sovereign blunder to attempt the conquest of a young and 
affectionate bride during the first felicities of the honey¬ 
moon, or of a fortified Clarissa already made miserable by 
a Lovelace, or bitterly lamenting her love. 

We shall not discuss here the impurities of black magic 
on the subject of philtres; we have done with the coctions 
of Canidia. The epodes of Horace tell us after what man¬ 
ner this abominable Roman sorceress compounded her 
poisons, while for the sacrifices and enchantments of love, 
we may refer to the Eclogues of Virgil and Theocritus, 
where the ceremonials for this species of magical work are 
minutely described. Nor shall we need to reproduce the 
recipes of the Grimoires or of the Little Albert, which any 
one can consult for themselves. All these various practices 
connect with magnetism or poisonous magic, and are either 
foolish or criminal. Potions which enfeeble mind and 
disturb reason assure the empire already conquered by an 
evil will, and it was thus that the empress Casonia is said 
to have fixed the savage love of Caligula. Prussic acid is 
the mast terrible agent in these envenomings of thought, 
and hence we should all beware of extractions with an 
almond flavour, and never tolerate in bedchambers the 
presence of laurel-almond, datura stramonium , almond 
soaps or washes, and generally all perfumes in which this 
odour predominates, above all,, when its action on the brain 
is seconded by that of amber. 

To weaken the activity of intelligence is to strengthen 
proportionally the forces of unreasoning passion. Love of 
that kind which the malefactors we are concerned with 
would inspire is a veritable stupefaction and the most 


342 


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shameful of moral bondages. The more we enervate a 
slave, the more incapable we make him of freedom, and 
here lies the true secret of the sorceress in Apuleius and 
the potions of Circe. The use of tobacco, by smoking or 
otherwise, is a dangerous auxiliary of stupefying philtres 
and brain poisons. Nicotine, as we know, is not less deadly 
than prussic acid, and is present in tobacco in larger quan¬ 
tities than is this acid in almonds. The absorption of one 
will by another frequently changes a whole series of des¬ 
tinies, and not for ourselves only should we watch our re¬ 
lations, learning to distinguish pure from impure atmos¬ 
pheres, for the true philtres, and those most dangerous, 
are invisible; these are the curents of vital radiating light, 
which, mingling and interchanging, produce attractions 
and sympathies, as magnetic experiments leave no room to 
doubt. The history of the Church tells us that an arch¬ 
heretic named Marcos infatuated all women by breathing 
on them, but his power was destroyed by a valiant Chris¬ 
tian female, who forestalled him in breathing, and said to 
him: “May God judge thee!” The cure Gaufridy, who 
was burnt as a sorcerer, pretended to enamour all women 
who came in contact with his breath. The notorious Father 
Girard, a Jesuit, was accused by his penitent, Mile. Cardier, 
of completely destroying her self-control by breathing on 
her. The excuse was most necessary to minimise the hor¬ 
rible and ridiculous nature of her accusations against this 
priest, whose guilt, moreover, has never been well estab¬ 
lished, though, consciously or unconsciously, he had cer¬ 
tainly inspired an exceedingly shameful passion in the 
miserable girl. 

“Mile. Ranfaing, having become a widow in 16—,” 
says Dom Calmet in his “Treatise on Apparitions,” “was 
sought in marriage by a physician named Poirot. Failing 
to obtain a hearing, he thereupon gave her potions to in¬ 
duce love, and these caused extraordinary derangements in 
the health of the lady, increasing to such a degree that she 
was believed to be possessed, and physicians, baffled by her 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


343 


case, recommended her for the exorcisms of the Church. 
Thereupon, by command of M. de Porcelets, Bishop of 
Toul, the following were named as her exorcists: M. Viar- 
din, doctor in theology, the state councillor of the Duke of 
Lorraine, a Jesuit, and a capuchin, but in the long course 
of their ceremonies, almost all the clergy of Nancy, the 
aforesaid lord bishop, the bishop of Tripoli, suffragan of 
Strasbourg, M. de Nancy, formerly ambassador of the most 
Christian King at Constantinople and then priest of the 
Oratory, Charles of Lorraine, Bishop of Verdun, two Sor- 
bonne doctors specially deputed to assist, frequently exor¬ 
cised her in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin, and she in¬ 
variably replied to them pertinently, though she herself 
could scarcely read even Latin. Mention is made of the 
certificate given by M. Nicholas de Harlay, learned in the 
Hebrew tongue, who recognised that Mile. Ranfaing was 
really possessed, that she had answered the mere motion of 
his lips without any uttered words, and had given numerous 
other proofs. The sieur Gamier, doctor of the Sorbonne, 
having also commanded her several times in the Hebrew 
language, she replied lucidly, but in French, saying that 
the pact bound her to speak in ordinary language. The 
demon added: “Is it not sufficient for me to shew that I 
understand what you say ? ’ ’ The same doctor, addressing 
him in Greek, inadvertently used one case for another, 
whereupon the possessed woman, or rather the devil, said: 
“You have blundered.” The doctor replied in Greek, 
“Point out my error.” The devil answered, “Be satisfied 
that I mention the mistake; I shall tell you no more.’ ’ The 
doctor bade him be silent in Greek, and he retorted, “You 
bid me be silent, and I will not be silent. ’ ’ 

This remarkable example of hysterical affection carried 
into the region of ecstasy and demonomania, as the con¬ 
sequence of a potion administered by a man who believed 
that he was a sorcerer, proves, better than anything we 
could say, the omnipotence of will and imagination re¬ 
acting one upon another, and the strange lucidity of 


344 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


ecstatics or somnambulists, who comprehend speech by 
reading it in thought, though they have no knowledge of 
the words. I make no question as to the sincerity of the 
witnesses cited by Dom Calmet; I am merely astonished 
that men so serious passed by the difficulty which the pre¬ 
tended demon experienced over answering in a tongue 
foreign to the sufferer. Had their interlocutor been what 
they understood by a demon, he would have spoken as well 
as understood Greek; the one would have been as easy as 
the other to a spirit so learned and satirical. Dom Calmet 
does not stop here with his history; he enumerates a long 
series of insidious questions and unserious injunctions on 
the part of the exorcisors, and a like sequence of more 
or less congruous replies by the poor sufferer, who was al¬ 
ways ecstatic and somnambulistic. It is needless to add 
that the excellent father draws precisely the luminous con¬ 
clusions of the not less excellent M. de Mirville. The phe¬ 
nomena being above the comprehension of the witnesses, 
they were all ascribed to perdition. Splendid and in¬ 
structed conclusion! The most serious part of the business 
is that the physician Poirot was arraigned as a magician, 
confessed, like all others, under torture, and was burnt. 
Had he, by any potion, really attempted the reason of the 
woman in question, he would have deserved punishment as 
a poisoner; that is the most that we can say. 

But the most terrific of all philtres are the mystical 
exaltations of misdirected devotion. Will ever any impuri¬ 
ties equal the nightmares of St Anthony or the tortures of 
St Theresa and St Angela de Foligny? The last applied a 
red hot iron to her rebellious flesh, and found that the 
material fire was cooling to her hidden ardours. With what 
violence does nature cry out for that which is denied her, 
but! is brooded over continually to increase detestation 
thereof! The pretended bewitchments of Magdalen Bavan, 
of Miles, de la Palud, and de la Cadiere, began with mysti¬ 
cism. The excessive fear of a given thing makes it almost 
invariably inevitable. To follow the two curves of a circle 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


345 


is to reach and to meet at the same point. Nicholas 
Remigius, criminal judge of Lorraine, who burnt alive eight 
hundred women as sorcerers, beheld magic everywhere; it 
was his fixed idea, his mania. He was eager to preach a 
crusade against sorcerers, with whom Europe, in his opin¬ 
ion, was swarming; in despair that his word was not taken 
when he affirmed that nearly everyone in the world had 
been guilty of magic, he ended by declaring that he was 
himself a sorcerer, and was burned on his own confession. 

To preserve ourselves against evil influences, the first 
condition is therefore to forbid excitement to the imagina¬ 
tion. All those who are prone to excitement are more or 
less mad, and a maniac is ever governed by his mania. 
Place yourself, then, above puerile fears and vague desires; 
believe in supreme wisdom, and be assured that this wis¬ 
dom, having given you understanding as the means of 
knowledge, cannot seek to lay snares for your intelligence 
or reason. Everywhere about you, you behold effects pro¬ 
portioned to their causes; you find causes directed and 
modified in the domain of humanity by understanding; in 
a word, you find goodness stronger and more respected 
than evil; why should you assume an immense unreason in 
the infinite, seeing that there is reason in the finite ? Truth 
is hidden from no one. God is visible in His works, and 
He requires nothing contrary to its nature from any being, 
for He is himself the author of that nature. Faith is con¬ 
fidence ; have confidence, not in men who malign reason, for 
they are fools or impostors, but in the eternal reason which 
is the Divine Word, that true light which is offered like 
the sun to the intuition of every human creature coming 
into this world. If you believe in absolute reason, and 
if you desire truth and justice before all things, you will 
have no occasion to fear anyone, and you will love those 
only who are deserving of love. Your natural light will 
repel instinctively that of the wicked, because it will be 
ruled by your will. Thus, even poisonous substances, which 
it is possible may be administered to you, will not affect 


346 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


your intelligence; ill, indeed, they may make you, but 
never criminal. 

What most contributes to render women hysterical is 
their soft and hypocritical education; if they took more 
exercise, if they were instructed more frankly and fully in 
matters of the world, they would be less capricious, and con¬ 
sequently less accessible to evil tendencies. Weakness ever 
sympathises with vice, because vice is a weakness which 
assumes the mask of strength. Madness holds reason in 
horror, and on all subjects it delights in the exaggerations 
of falsehood. In the first place, therefore, cure your dis¬ 
eased intelligence. The cause of all bewitchments, the 
poison of all philtres, the power of all sorcerers, are there. 
As to narcotics or other drugs which may be administered 
to you, it is a subject for the physician and the law, but 
we do not think that such enormities will be largely repro¬ 
duced at this day. Lovelaces no longer stupefy Clarissas 
otherwise than by their gallantries, and potions, like ab¬ 
ductions by masked men and imprisonments in subter¬ 
ranean dungeons, have even passed out of our romances. 
All these must be relegated to the Confessional of the Black 
Penitents or the ruins of the Castle of Udolpho. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


347 


CHAPTER XIX 

THE MASTERY OF THE SUN 

We come now to that number which is attributed in the 
Tarot to the sign of the sun. The denary of Pythagoras 
and the triad multiplied by itself represent wisdom in its 
application to the absolute. It is with the absolute, there¬ 
fore, that we are concerned here. To discover the absolute 
in the infinite, the indefinite, and the finite, such is the great 
work of the sages, that which is termed by Hermes the 
work of the sun. To find the immovable foundations of 
true religious faith, of philosophical truth, and of metallic 
transmutation, this is the whole secret of Hermes, this is 
the philosophical stone. Now, this stone is both one and 
manifold; it is decomposed by analysis and recomposed by 
synthesis. In the analysis it is a powder, the alchemical 
powder of projection; before the analysis and in the syn¬ 
thesis it is a stone. The philosophical stone, say the mas¬ 
ters, must not be exposed to the air, nor to the eyes of the 
profane; it must be kept in concealment and preserved 
carefully in the most secret receptacle of the laboratory, 
the key of the place being always carried upon the person. 

He who possesses the great arcanum is truly king and is 
above any king, for he is inaccessible to all fears and to all 
vain hopes. In any malady of soul or body, a single frag¬ 
ment broken from the precious stone, a single grain of the 
divine powder, are more than sufficient for their cure. 
4 ‘He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,” as the Master 
said. 

Salt, sulphur, and the mercuries are only accessory ele¬ 
ments and passive instruments of the great enterprise. 
Everything depends, as we have said, upon the interior 
magnes of Paracelsus. The work consists entirely in pro¬ 
jection, and projection is accomplished perfectly by the 




348 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


effective and realisable intelligence of a single word. There 
is but one important operation, and that is sublimation, 
which is nothing else, according to Geber, but the elevation 
of the dry substance by means of fire, with adherence to its 
proper vessel. He who is desirous of understanding the 
great word and of possessing the great arcanum, after 
studying the principles of our Doctrine, should read the 
Hermetic philosophers carefully, and he will doubtless at¬ 
tain initiation, as others have attained it; but for the key 
of their allegories he must take the one dogma of Hermes, 
contained in the Emerald Table, and to classify the knowl¬ 
edge and direct the operation he must follow the order in¬ 
dicated in the kabbalistic alphabet of the Tarot, of which 
an absolute and complete explanation will be given in the 
last chapter of this work. 

Among the rare and priceless treatises which contain the 
mysteries of the great arcanum, the ‘ ‘ Chemical Pathway or 
Manual” of Paracelsus must be placed in the first rank, as 
comprising all the mysteries of demonstrative physics and 
the most secret kabbalah. This unique manuscript is pre¬ 
served in the Vatican Library; a copy was transcribed by 
Sendivogius, and was used by Baron Tschoudy when com¬ 
posing the Hermetic Catechism contained in his work en¬ 
titled “The Blazing Star.” This catechism, which we 
point out to instructed kabbalists as a substitute for the 
incomparable treatise of Paracelsus, expounds all the es¬ 
sential principles of the great work in a form so clear and 
complete that a person must be absolutely wanting in the 
quality of occult understanding if he fail in attaining the 
absolute truth by its study. We shall now give a succinct 
analysis of this work, together with a few words by way of 
commentary. 

Raymond Lully, one of the grand and sublime masters of 
science, says that before we can make gold we must have 
gold. Out of nothing we can make nothing; wealth is not 
absolutely created; it is increased and multiplied. Hence, 
let aspirants to knowledge understand thoroughly that 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


349 


neither miracles nor jugglers’ feats are required of the 
adept. Hermetic science, like all real sciences, is mathe¬ 
matically demonstrable. Even its material results are as 
exact as a well-worked equation. Hermetic gold is not only 
a true doctrine, a shadowless light, truth unalloyed with 
falsehood; it is also material, actual, pure gold, the most 
precious which can be found in the veins of the earth, but 
the living gold, living sulphur, or true fire of the philoso¬ 
pher, must be sought in the house of mercury. This fire 
feeds on air; to express its attractive and expansive power, 
a better comparison is impossible than that of lightning, 
which primally is a dry and terrestrial exhalation united 
to humid vapour, and afterwards, in virtue of its exalta¬ 
tion, assuming an igneous nature, acts on its inherent 
humidity, which it attracts and transmutes into its own 
nature, after which it falls rapidly to earth, where it is 
drawn by a fixed nature similar to its own. These words, 
enigmatic in form but clear in essence, express openly 
what the philosophers understand by their mercury fructi¬ 
fied by sulphur, becoming the master and regenerator of 
salt; it is Azoth, universal magnesia, the great magical 
agent, the astral light, the light of life, fertilised by animic 
force, by intellectual energy, which they compare to sul¬ 
phur on account of its affinities with divine fire. As to 
salt, it is absolute matter. All that is material contains 
salt, and all salt can be converted into pure gold by the 
combined action of sulphur and mercury, which at times 
act with such swiftness that transmutation can take place 
in an instant, or in an hour, without labour for the operator 
and almost without expense; at other times, when the ten¬ 
dencies of the atmospheric media are more contrary, the 
operation requires several days, months, and, occasionally, 
even years. 

As we have already said, there are two palmary natural 
laws—two essential laws—which, balanced one against an¬ 
other, produce the universal equilibrium of things. These 
are fixity and motion, analogous to truth and discovery in 




350 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


philosophy, and in absolute conception to necessity and 
liberty, which are the very essence of God. The Hermetic 
philosophers give the name of fixed to all which is ponder¬ 
able, to all which tends by its nature to central rest and 
immobility; whatsoever obeys more naturally and readily 
the law of motion, they term volatile; and they compose 
their stone by analysis, that is, the volatilisation of the 
fixed; then by synthesis, that is, the fixation of the volatile, 
which they operate by applying to the fixed, called their 
salt, sulphurated mercury or light of life, directed and 
rendered omnipotent by a secret operation. They possess 
themselves in this manner of all nature, and their stone is 
found wherever there is salt, which is equivalent to saying 
that no substance is foreign to the great work, and that 
even the most apparently contemptible and vile matters can 
be changed into gold, which is true in this sense, as we have 
said, that all contain the fundamental salt, represented in 
our emblems by the cubic stone itself, as may be seen in 
the symbolic and universal frontispiece to the keys of Basil 
Valentine. To know how to extract from all matter the 
pure salt which is concealed in it is to possess the secret of 
the stone. It is, therefore, a saline stone, which the od, or 
universal astral light, decomposes or recomposes. It is one 
and many, for, like ordinary salt, it can be dissolved and 
incorporated with other substances. Obtained by analysis, 
it may be termed the universal sublimate; recovered by the 
synthetic way, it is the veritable panacea of the ancients, for 
it cures all diseases, whether of soul or body, and is termed, 
in an eminent manner, the medicine of all nature. When, 
by means of absolute initiation, we can dispose of the 
forces of the universal agent, this stone is always to our 
hand, for its extraction is then a simple and easy operation, 
far different from projection or metallic realisation. The 
stone in its sublimated state must not be exposed to the 
air, which might dissolve it and spoil its virtue. More¬ 
over, to inhale its exhalations is not devoid of danger. The 
wise man more readily conserves it in its natural envelopes, 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


351 


knowing that he can extract it by a single effort of his will, 
and a single application of the universal agent to the en¬ 
velopes, which the kabbalists term shells. To express 
hieroglyphically this law of prudence, the sages of Egypt 
ascribed to their mercury, personified as Hermanubis, a 
dog’s head, and to their sulphur, represented by the Baph- 
omet of the temple, or prince of the Sabbath, that goat’s 
head which brought such odium upon the occult associa¬ 
tions of the middle ages. 

For the mineral work, the first matter is exclusively 
mineral, but it is not a metal. It is a metallised salt. 
This matter is called vegetable, because it resembles a fruit, 
and animal, because it produces a kind of milk and blood. 
It alone contains the fire by which it must be dissolved. 


352 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


CHAPTER XX 

THE THAUMATURGE 

We have defined miracles as the natural effects of excep¬ 
tional causes. The immediate action of the human will 
upon the body, or at least that action exercised without 
visible means, constitutes a miracle in the physical order. 
The influence exercised upon wills or intelligences, either 
suddenly or within a given time, and capable of subjugat¬ 
ing thoughts, changing the most determined resolutions, 
paralysing the most violent passions—this influence con¬ 
stitutes a miracle in the moral order. The common error 
concerning miracles is to regard them as effects without 
causes, contradictions of nature, sudden vagaries of the 
divine mind, not seeing that a single miracle of this class 
would destroy the universal harmony, and reduce the uni¬ 
verse to chaos. There are miracles which are impossible, 
even for God, namely, those which involve absurdity. Could 
God be absurd for one instant, neither Himself nor the 
world would be in existence the moment following. To 
expect from the divine arbiter an effect having a dispro¬ 
portionate cause, or even no cause at all, is what is called 
tempting God; it is casting one’s self into the void. God 
operates by His works—in heaven by angels, and on earth 
by men. Hence, in the circle of angelic action, the angels 
can perform all that is possible for God, and in the human 
circle of action men can dispose equally of divine omnipo¬ 
tence. In the heaven of human conceptions, it is humanity 
which creates God, and men think that God has made 
them in His image because they have made Him in theirs. 
The domain of man is all corporeal and visible nature on 
earth, and if he cannot rule suns and stars, he can at least 
calculate their motion, compute their distances, and identify 
his will with their influence; he can modify the atmos- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


353 


phere, act up to a certain point upon the seasons, heal or 
harm his neighbours, preserve life and inflict death, the 
conservation of life, including resurrection in certain cases, 
as already established. The absolute in reason and volition 
is the greatest power which can be given any man to attain, 
and it is by means of this power that he performs what as¬ 
tonishes the multitude under the name of miracles. 

The most perfect purity of intention is indispensable to 
the thaumaturge, and in the next place a favourable cur¬ 
rent and unlimited confidence. The man who has come to 
fear nothing and desire nothing is master of all. This is 
the meaning of that beautiful allegory of the Gospel, 
wherein the Son of God, thrice victor over the unclean 
spirit, is ministered unto by angels in the wilderness. 
Nothing on earth withstands a free and rational will. 
When the wise man says, “I will,” it is God Himself who 
wills, and all that He commands takes place. It is the 
knowledge of the physician, and the confidence placed in 
him, which constitute the virtue of his prescriptions, and 
thaumaturgy is the only real and efficacious remedy. Hence 
occult therapeutics are apart from all vulgar medication. 
It chiefly makes use of words and insufflations, and com¬ 
municates by will a various virtue to the simplest sub¬ 
stances—water, oil, wine, camphor, salt. The water of 
homoeopathists is truly a magnetised and enchanted water, 
which works by means of faith. The dynamic substances 
added in, so to speak, infinitesimal quantities are consecra¬ 
tions and signs of the physician’s will. 

What is vulgarly called charlatanism is a great means of 
real success in medicine, assuming that it is sufficiently 
skilful to inspire great confidence and to form a circle of 
faith. In medicine, above all, it is faith which saves. There 
is scarcely a village which does not possess its male or fe¬ 
male compounder of occult medicine, and these people are 
almost everywhere, and invariably, more successful incom¬ 
parably than physicians approved by the faculty. The 
remedies they prescribe are often strange or ridiculous, and 


354 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


hence answer all the better, for they exact and realise more 
faith on the part of patients and operators. An old mer¬ 
chant of our acquaintance, a man of eccentric character and 
exalted religious sentiment, after retiring from business, 
set himself to exercise gratuitously, and out of Christian 
charity, occult medicine in one of the Departments of 
France. His sole specifics were oil, insufflations, and 
prayers. The institution of a law-suit against him for the 
illegal exercise of medicine established in public knowledge 
that ten thousand cures had been attributed to him in the 
space of about five years, and that the number of his be¬ 
lievers increased in proportions calculated to alarm all 
the doctors of the district. We saw also at Mans a poor 
nun who was regarded as slightly demented, but she healed, 
nevertheless, all diseases in the surrounding country by 
means of an elixir and plaster of her own invention. The 
elixir was taken internally, the plaster was applied out¬ 
wardly, so that nothing escaped this universal panacea. 
The plaster never stuck upon the skin save at the place 
where its application was necessary, and it rolled up and 
fell off by itself—such at least was asserted by the good 
sister and declared to be the case by the sufferers. This 
thaumaturge was also subjected to prosecution, for she 
impoverished the practice of all the doctors round about 
her; she was rigidly cloistered, but it was soon found neces¬ 
sary to produce her at least once a week, and on the day 
for her consultations we have seen Sister Jane-Francis 
surrounded by the country folk, who had arrived over¬ 
night, awaiting their turn, lying at the convent gate; they 
had slept upon the ground, and tarried only to receive the 
elixir and plaster of the devoted sister. The remedy being 
the same in all diseases, it would appear needless for her 
to be acquainted with the cases of her patients, but she 
listened to them invariably with great attention, and only 
dispensed her specific after learning the nature of the com¬ 
plaint. There was the magical secret. The direction of the 
intention imparted its special virtue to the remedy, which 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


355 


was insignificant in itself. The elixir was spiced brandy 
mixed with the juice of bitter herbs; the plaster was a 
compound analogous to theriac as regards colour and smell; 
it was possibly electuary Burgogne pitch, but whatever the 
substance, it worked wonders, and the wrath of the rural 
folk would have been visited on those who questioned the 
miracles of their nun. Near Paris, also, we knew of an old 
gardener thaumaturge who accomplished marvellous cures 
by putting in his phials the juice of all the herbs of St 
John. He had, however, a sceptical brother, who derided 
the sorcerer, and the poor gardener, overwhelmed by the 
sarcasms of this infidel, began to doubt himself, whereupon 
all the miracles ceased, the sufferers lost confidence, and 
the thaumaturge, slandered and despairing, died mad. 
The Abbe Thiers, cure of Vibraie, in his curious “Treatise 
concerning Superstitions/’ records that a woman, afflicted 
with an apparently aggravated ophthalmia, having been 
suddenly and mysteriously cured, confessed to a priest 
that she had betaken herself to magic. She had long 
importuned a clerk, whom she regarded as a magician, to 
give her a talisman that she might wear, and he had at 
length delivered her a scroll of parchment, advising her at 
the same time to wash three times daily in fresh water. 
The priest made her give up the parchment, on which were 
these words: Eruat diabolus oculos tuos et repleat ster- 
coribus loca vacantia. He translated them to the good 
woman, who was stupefied; but, all the same, she was 
cured. 

Insufflation is one of the most important practices of 
occult medicine, because it is a perfect sign of the trans¬ 
mission of life. To inspire, as a fact, means to breathe 
upon some person or thing, and we know already, by the 
one doctrine of Hermes, that the virtue of things has 
created words, and that there is an exact proportion be¬ 
tween ideas and speech, which is the first form and verbal 
realisation of ideas. The breath attracts or repels, accord¬ 
ingly, as it is warm or cold. The warm breathing cor- 




356 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


responds to positive electricity, and the cold breathing 
to negative electricity. Electrical and nervous animals 
fear the cold breathing, and the experiment may be made 
upon a cat, whose familiarities are importunate. By 
fixedly regarding a lion or tiger and blowing in their 
face, they would be so stupefied as to be forced to retreat 
before us. Warm and prolonged insufflation restores the 
circulation of the blood, cures rheumatic and gouty pains, 
re-establishes the balance of the humours, and dispels las¬ 
situde. When the operator is sympathetic and good, it 
acts as a universal sedative. Cold insufflation soothes 
pains occasioned by congestions and fluidic accumulations. 
The two breathings must, therefore, be used alternately, 
observing the polarity of the human organism, and acting 
in a contrary manner upon the poles, which must be treated 
successfully to an opposite magnetism. Thus, to cure an 
inflamed eye, the one which is not affected must be sub¬ 
jected to a warm and gentle insufflation, cold insufflation 
being practised upon the suffering member at the same 
distance and in the same proportion. Magnetic passes 
have a similar effect to insufflations, and are a real breath¬ 
ing by transpiration and radiation of the interior air, 
which is phosphorescent with vital light; slow passes con¬ 
stitute a warm breathing which fortifies and raises the 
spirits; swift passes are a cold breathing of dispersive 
nature, neutralising tendencies to congestion. The warm 
insufflation should be performed transversely, or from be¬ 
low upward; the cold insufflation is more effective when 
directed downward from above. 

We breathe not only by means of mouth and nostrils; 
the universal porousness of our body is a true respiratory 
apparatus, inadequate undoubtedly, but most useful to life 
and health. The extremities of the fingers, where all the 
nerves terminate, diffuse or attract the astral light accord¬ 
ingly as we will. Magnetic passes without contact are a 
simple and slight insufflation; contact adds sympathetic and 
equilibrating impression; it is good and even necessary, to 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


357 


prevent hallucinations at the early stages of somnambulism, 
for it is a communion of physical reality which admonishes 
the brain and recalls wandering imagination; it must not, 
however, be too prolonged when the object is merely to 
magnetise. Absolute and prolonged contact is useful when 
the design is incubation or massage rather than magnetism 
properly so called. We have given some examples of in¬ 
cubation from the most revered book of the Christians; 
they all refer to the cure of apparently incurable lethargies, 
as we are induced to term resurrections. Massage is still 
largely resorted to in the east, where it is practised with 
great success at the public baths. It is entirely a system 
of frictions, tractions, and pressures, practised slowly along 
the whole length of members and muscles, the result being 
renewed equilibrium in the forces, a feeling of complete 
repose and well-being, with a sensible restoration of activity 
and vigour. 

The whole power of the occult physician is in the con¬ 
science of his will, while his whole art consists in exciting 
the faith of his patient. “If you have faith,” said the 
Master, ‘‘ all things are possible to him who believes. ’ ’ The 
subject must be dominated by expression, tone, gesture; 
confidence must be inspired by a fatherly manner, and 
cheerfulness stimulated by seasonable and sprightly con¬ 
versations. Rabelais, who was a greater magician than he 
seemed, made pantagruelism his special panacea. He com¬ 
pelled his patients to laugh, and all the remedies he sub¬ 
sequently gave them succeeded better in consequence; he 
established a magnetic sympathy between himself and 
them, by means of which he communicated to them his own 
confidence and good humour; he flattered them in his 
prefaces, termed them his precious, most illustrious patients, 
and dedicated his books to them. So are we convinced that 
Gargantua and Pantagruel cured more black humours, more 
tendencies to madness, more atrabilious whims, at that 
epoch of religious animosities and civil wars, than the whole 
Faculty of medicine could boast. Occult medicine is essen- 


358 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


tially sympathetic. Reciprocal affection, or at least real 
good will, must exist between doctor and patient. Syrups 
and juleps have very little inherent virtue; they are what 
they become through the mutual opinion of operator and 
subject; hence homoeopathic medicine dispenses with them 
and no serious inconvenience follows. Oil and wine, com¬ 
bined with salt or camphor, are sufficient for the healing of 
all afflictions, and for all external frictions or soothing 
applications, oil and wine are the chief medicaments of 
the Gospel tradition. They formed the balm of the Good 
Samaritan, and in the Apocalypse, when describing the 
last plagues, the prophet prays the avenging powers to 
spare these substances, that is, to leave a hope and a remedy 
for so many wounds. What we term extreme unction was 
the pure and simple practice of the Master’s traditional 
medicine, both for the early Christians and in the mind of 
the apostle Saint James, who has included the precept in 
his epistle to the faithful of the whole world. 4 ‘ Is any man 
sick among you,” he writes, “let him call in the priests 
of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him 
with oil in the name of the Lord.” This divine therapeutic 
science was lost gradually, and Extreme Unction came to be 
regarded as a religious formality necessary as a prepara¬ 
tion for death. At the same time, the thaumaturgic virtue 
of consecrated oil could not be altogether effaced from re¬ 
membrance by the traditional doctrine, and it is perpetuated 
in the passage of the catechism which refers to Extreme 
Unction. Faith and charity were the most signal healing 
powers among the early Christians. The source of most 
diseases is in moral disorders; we must begin by healing 
the soul, and then the cure of the body will follow quickly. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


359 


CHAPTER XXI 

THE SCIENCE OF THE PROPHETS 

This chapter is consecrated to divination, which, in its 
broadest sense, and following the grammatical significance 
of the word, is the exercise of divine power, and the 
realisation of divine knowledge. It is the priesthood of 
the magus. But divination, in general opinion, is concerned 
more closely with the knowledge of hidden things. To 
know the most secret thoughts of men; to penetrate the 
mysteries of past and future; to evoke age by age the 
exact revelation of effects by the precise knowledge of 
causes; this is what is universally called divination. Now, 
of all mysteries of nature, the most profound is the heart of 
man, and at the same time nature forbids its depths to be 
inaccessible. In spite of the deepest dissimulation, despite 
the most skilful policy, she herself traces, and makes plain 
in the bodily form, in the light of glances, in movements, in 
carriage, in voice, a thousand tell-tale indices. The perfect 
initiate has no need of these indices; he perceives the truth 
in the light; he senses an impression which makes known 
the whole man, his glance penetrates hearts, he may even 
feign ignorance to disarm the fear or hatred of the wicked 
whom he knows too well. A man of had conscience thinks 
always that he is being accused or suspected; he recognises 
himself in a touch of collective satire, he applies that whole 
satire to himself, and cries loudly that he is calumniated. 
Ever suspicious, but as curious as he is apprehensive, in the 
presence of the magus he is like the Satan of the parable, 
or like those scribes who questioned tempting. Ever stub¬ 
born and ever feeble, what he fears above all is the recog¬ 
nition that he is in the wrong. The past disquiets him, 
the future alarms him; he seeks to compound with him¬ 
self and to believe himself a well-placed and virtuous 


360 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


man. His life is a perpetual struggle between good aspira¬ 
tions and evil habits; he thinks himself a philosopher after 
the manner of Aristippe or Horace in accepting all the 
corruption of his time as a necessity which he must 
undergo; he distracts himself with some philosophical 
pastime, and appropriates the protecting smile of Mecasnas 
to persuade himself that he is not simply a battener on 
famine like Verres or a parasite of Trimalcion. Such men 
are always mercenaries, even in their good works. They 
decide to make a gift to a public charity, and they post¬ 
pone it to get the interest. The type which I am describing 
is not an individual but a class of men with which the 
magus is liable to come frequently in contact, especially in 
our own century. Let him follow their own example by 
mistrusting them, for they will be invariably his most com¬ 
promising friends and most dangerous enemies. 

The public exercise of divination is unbecoming at the 
present period in a veritable adept, for he would be fre¬ 
quently driven to jugglery and feats of skill in order to 
preserve his clients and astonish his public. Accredited 
diviners, both male and female, have always secret spies, 
who instruct them as to the private life or habits of those 
who consult them. A code of signals is established between 
cabinet and antechamber; an unknown client at his first 
visit receives a number; a day is arranged, and he is fol¬ 
lowed; doorkeepers, neighbours, servants are engaged in 
gossip, and details are thus arrived at which overwhelm 
simple minds, and cause them to invest an impostor with 
the reverence which should be reserved for true science and 
genuine divination. 

The divination of events to come is possible only in the 
case of those the realisation of which is in some sense con¬ 
tained in their cause. The soul, scrutinising by means of 
the whole nervous system the circle of the astral light 
which influences a man and from him receives an influence, 
the soul of the diviner, we repeat, can compass by a single 
intuition all the loves and hatreds which that man has 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


361 


evoked about him; it can read his intentions in his thought, 
foresee obstacles that he will encounter, possibly the violent 
death which awaits him; but it cannot foresee his private, 
voluntary, capricious determinations of the moment follow¬ 
ing the consultation, unless, indeed, the ruse of the diviner 
itself prepares the fulfilment of the prophecy. For ex¬ 
ample, you say to a woman who is becoming passe, and is 
anxious to secure a husband: You will be present this even¬ 
ing or to-morrow evening at such or such a performance, 
and you will there see a man who will be to your liking. 
This man will observe you, and by a curious combination 
of circumstances the result will be a marriage. 

You may count on the lady going, you may count on her 
seeing a man and believing that he has noticed her, you 
may count on her anticipating marriage. It may not come 
to that in the end, but she will not lay the blame on you, 
because she would be giving up the opportunity for another 
illusion; on the contrary, she will return perseveringly to 
consult you. 

We have said that the astral light is the great book of 
divinations; the faculty of reading therein is either natural 
or acquired, and there are hence two classes of seers, the 
instinctive and the initiated. For this reason, children, 
uneducated people, shepherds, even idiots, have more ap¬ 
titude for natural divination than scholars and thinkers. 
The simple herd-boy, David, was a prophet even as Solomon, 
king of kabbalists and magi. The perceptions of instinct 
are often as certain as those of science; the persons least 
clairvoyant in the astral light are those who reason most. 
Somnambulism is a state of pure instinct, and hence som¬ 
nambulists require to be directed by a seer of science; 
sceptics and reasoners only lead them astray. Divinatory 
vision operates only in the ecstatic state, to arrive at which 
state, doubt and illusion must become impossible by en¬ 
chaining or putting to sleep thought. The instruments of 
divination are hence only methods of magnetising ourselves 
and of self-diversion from exterior light, so that we may 


362 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


pay attention to the interior light alone. It was for this 
reason that Apollonius completely enveloped himself in a 
woollen mantle, and fixed his eyes on his navel in the gloom. 

The magical mirror of Dupotet is kindred to the device of 
Apollonius. Hydroinancy and vision in the thumb-nail, 
when it has been polished and blackened, are varieties of 
the magical mirror. Perfumes and evocations stupefy 
thought; water and the colour black absorb the visual rays; 
a kind of dazzlement and vertigo ensue, followed by lu¬ 
cidity in subjects who have a natural aptitude or are suit¬ 
ably disposed thereto. Geomancy and cartomancy are other 
means to the same end; combinations of symbols and num¬ 
bers, which are at once fortuitous and necessary, bear 
enough resemblance to the chances of destiny for the im¬ 
agination to perceive realities by the pretext of such , 

emblems. The more the interest is excited, the greater is $ 

the desire to see; the fuller the confidence in the intuition, 

_ 

the more clear the vision becomes. To combine the points 
of geomancy on chance or to set out the cards for trifling 
is to jest like children; the lots become oracles only when 
they are magnetised by intelligence and directed by faith. 

Of all oracles, the Tarot is the most astounding in its 
answers, because all possible combinations of this universal 
key of the kabbalah give oracles of science and of truth for 
their solutions. The Tarot was the sole book of the ancient 
magi; it is the primitive Bible, as we shall prove in the 
following chapter, and the ancients consulted it as the first 
Christians at a later date consulted the Sacred Lots, that is, 
Bible verses selected by chance and determined by thinking 
of a number. Mile. Lenormand, the most celebrated of our 
modern fortune-tellers, was unacquainted with the science 
of the Tarot, or knew it only by derivation from Etteilla, 
whose explanations are shadows cast upon a background of 
light. She knew neither high magic nor the kabbalah, but 
her head was filled with ill-digested erudition, and she was 
intuitive by an instinct which deceived her rarely. The 
works she left behind her are Legitimist tomfoolery, orna- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


363 


mented with classical quotations, but her oracles inspired 
by the presence and magnetism of those who consulted her, 
were often astounding. She was a woman in whom ex¬ 
travagance of imagination and mental rambling were sub¬ 
stituted for the natural affections of her sex; she lived and 
died a virgin, like the ancient druidesses of the isle of 
Sayne. Had nature endowed her with beauty, she might 
have easily at a remoter epoch played the part of a Melu- 
sine or a Velleda. 

The more ceremonies employed in the practice of divina¬ 
tion, the more we excite imagination both in ourselves and 
in those who consult us. The Conjuration of the Four, the 
Prayer of Solomon, the magic sword to disperse phantoms, 
may thus be resorted to with success; we should also evoke 
the genius of the day and hour of operation, and offer him 
a special perfume; next we should enter into magnetic and 
intuitive correspondence with the consulting person, inquir¬ 
ing with what animal he is in sympathy and with what in 
antipathy, and so also concerning his favourite flower or 
colour. Flowers, colours, and animals connect in analogical 
classification with the seven genii of the kabbalah. Those 
who love blue are idealists and dreamers; lovers of red are 
material and passionate; those who love yellow are fan¬ 
tastic and capricious; lovers of green are frequently com¬ 
mercial and crafty; the friends of black are influenced by 
Saturn; the rose is the colour of Venus, &c. Lovers of the 
horse are hard-working, noble in character, and at the same 
time yielding and gentle; friends of the dog are affectionate 
and faithful; those of the cat are independent and libertine. 
Frank persons hold spiders in special horror; those of 
haughty nature are antipathetic to the serpent; upright 
and fastidious persons cannot tolerate rats and mice; the 
voluptuous loathe the toad, because it is cold, solitary, 
hideous, and miserable. Flowers have analogous sympathies 
to those of animals and colours, and as magic is the science 
of universal analogies, a single taste, one tendency, in a 
given person, enables all the rest to be divined; it is an 


364 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


application of the analogical anatomy of Cuvier to phe¬ 
nomena in the moral order. 

The physiognomy of face and body, the wrinkles on the 
brow, the lines on the hands, equally furnish the magus 
with precious indications, Metoposcopy and chiromancy 
have become separate sciences; their observations, purely 
empirical and conjectural, have been compared, examined, 
and then united into a body of doctrine by Goglenius, 
Belot, Romphile, Indagine, and Taisnier. The work of the 
last-mentioned writer is the most important and complete; 
he combines and criticises the observations and conjectures 
of all the others. A modem investigator, the Chevalier 
D ’Arpentigny, has imparted to chiromancy a fresh degree 
of certitude by his remarks on the analogies which really 
exist between the characters of persons and the form of 
their hands as a whole or in detail. This new science has 
been further developed and verified by an artist who is also 
a man of letters, rich in originality and skill. The disciple 
has surpassed the master, and our amiable and spiritual 
Desbarrolles, one of those travellers with whom our great 
novelist Alexandre Dumas delights to surround himself in 
his cosmopolitan romances, is already cited as a veritable 
magician in chiromancy. 

The consulting person should also be questioned upon 
his habitual dreams; dreams are the reflection of life, both 
interior and exterior. The old philosophers paid them 
grdat attention; the patriarchs regarded them as certain 
revelations; most religious revelations have been given in 
dreams. The monsters of perdition are nightmares of 
Christianity, and as the author of Smarra has ingeniously 
remarked, never could pencil or chisel have produced such 
beings if they had not been beheld in sleep. We should 
beware of persons whose imagination continually reflects 
deformities. Temperament is, in like manner, manifested 
by dreams, and as this exercises a permanent influence 
upon life, it is necessary to be well acquainted therewith 
if we would conjecture a destiny with certitude. Dreams 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


365 


of blood, of enjoyment, and of light indicate a sanguine 
temperament; those of water, mud, rain, tears, are oc¬ 
casioned by a more phlegmatic disposition; fire by night, 
darkness, terrors, spectres, belong to the bilious and melan¬ 
cholic. Synesius, one of the greatest Christian bishops of 
the first centuries, the disciple of that beautiful and pure 
Hypatia who was massacred by fanatics after presiding 
gloriously over the school of Alexandria, in the inheritance 
of which school Christianity should have shared—Synesius, 
lyric poet like Pindar and Callimachus, priest like Or¬ 
pheus, Christian like Spiridion of Tremithonte—has left us 
a treatise on dreams which has been supplied with a com¬ 
mentary by Cardan. No one concerns themselves now with 
these magnificent researches of the mind, because succes¬ 
sive fanaticisms have wellnigh forced the world to despair 
of scientific and religious rationalism. St Paul burned 
Trismegistus; Omar burned the disciples of Trismegistus 
and of St Paul. O persecutors! O incendiaries! 0 scoffers! 
when will ye end your work of darkness and destruction? 

One of the greatest magi of the Christian era, Trithemius, 
irreproachable abbot of a Benedictine monastery, learned 
theologian, and master of Cornelius Agrippa, has left 
among his unappreciated and inestimable works, a treatise 
entitled, De septem secundeis, id est intelligentiis sive 
spiritibus orbes post Deum moventibus. It is a key of all 
prophecies new or old, a mathematical, historical, and 
simple method of surpassing Isaiah and Jeremiah in the 
prevision of all great events to come. The author in bold 
outline sketches the philosophy of history, and divides the 
existence of the entire world between the seven genii of 
the kabbalah. It is the grandest and widest interpretation 
ever made of those seven angels of the Apocalypse who ap¬ 
pear successively with trumpets and cups to pour out the 
word and its realisation upon the earth. The duration of 
each angelic reign is 354 years and four months, beginning 
with that of Orifiel, the angel of Saturn, on the 13th of 
March, for, according to Trithemius, this was the date of 


3 66 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


the world’s creation; it was a period of savagery and dark¬ 
ness. Next came the reign of Anael, the spirit of Venus, 
on the 24th of June, in the year of the world 354, when 
love began to be the instructor of mankind; it created the 
family, and the family led to association and the primitive 
city. The first civilisers were poets inspired by love; pres¬ 
ently the exaltation of poetry produced religion, fanaticism, 
and debauchery, culminating subsequently in the deluge. 
This state of things continued till the 25th of October, 
being the eighth month of the year a.m. 708, when the reign 
of Zachariel, the angel of Jupiter, was inaugurated, under 
whose guidance men began to acquire knowledge, and dis¬ 
pute the possession of lands and dwellings. It was also the 
epoch of the foundation of towns and the limitation of 
empires; its consequences were civilisation and war. The 
need for commerce began, furthermore, to be felt, at which 
time—namely, the 24th of February, a.m. 1063—was in¬ 
augurated the reign of Raphael, angel of Mercury, angel 
of science and of the word, of intelligence and industry. 
Then letters were invented, the first language being hiero¬ 
glyphic and universal, a monument of which has been 
preserved in the book of Enoch, Cadmus, Thoth, and Pala- 
medes; the kabbalistic clavicle adopted later on by Solo¬ 
mon, the mystical book of the Theraphim, Urim, and 
Thummim, the primeval Genesis of the Zohar, and of 
William Postel, the mystical wheel of Ezekiel, the rota of 
the Kabbalists, the Tarot of the Magi and the Bohemians. 
Then were arts invented, and navigation was attempted for 
the first time; relations extended, wants multiplied, and 
there followed speedily an epoch of general corruption, 
preceding the universal deluge, under the reign of Samael, 
angel of Mars, which was inaugurated on the 26th of June, 
a.m. 1417. After long stupefaction, the world strove to¬ 
wards a new birth under Gabriel, the angel of the moon, 
whose reign began on the 28th of March, a.m. 1771, when 
the family of Noah became multiplied, and re-peopled the 
whole earth, after the confusion of Babel, until the reign of 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


367 


Michael, angel of the sun, which commenced on the 24th of 
February, a.m. 2126, to which epoch must be referred the 
origin of the first dominations, the empire of the children of 
Nimrod, the birth of sciences and religions, and the first 
conflicts between despotism and liberty. Trithemius pur¬ 
sues this curious study throughout the ages, and at cor¬ 
responding epochs exhibits the recurrence of ruins; then 
civilisation, bom anew by means of poetry and love; em¬ 
pires, reconstituted by the family, enlarged by commerce, 
destroyed by war, repaired by universal and progressive 
civilisation, subsequently absorbed by great empires, which 
are the syntheses of history. The work of Trithemius, from 
this point of view, is more comprehensive and independent 
than that of Bossuet, and is a key absolute to the philosophy 
of history. His exact calculations lead him to the month of 
November in the year 1879, epoch of the reign of Michael 
and the foundation of a new universal kingdom, prepared 
by three centuries and a half of anguish, and a like period 
of hope, coinciding exactly with the sixteenth, seventeenth, 
eighteenth, and first part of the nineteenth centuries for the 
lunar twilight and expectation, with the fourteenth, thir¬ 
teenth, twelfth, and second half of the eleventh centuries 
for the ordeals, the ignorance, the sufferings, and the 
scourges of all nature. We see, therefore, according to this 
calculation, that in 1879—that is, in twenty-four years’ 
time, a universal empire will be founded, and will secure 
peace to the world. This empire will be political and re¬ 
ligious ; it will offer a solution for all problems agitated in 
our own days, and will endure for 354 years and 4 months, 
after which it will be succeeded by the return of the reign 
of Orifiel, an epoch of silence and night. The coming uni¬ 
versal empire, being under the reign of the sun, will belong 
to him who holds the keys of the East, which are now being 
disputed by the princes of the world’s four quarters. But 
intelligence and activity are the forces which rule the sun 
in the superior kingdoms, and the nation which now pos¬ 
sesses the initiative of intelligence and life will possess 


368 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


also the keys of the East, and will establish the uni¬ 
versal kingdom. To do this it may previously have to un¬ 
dergo a cross and martyrdom analogous to those of the 
Man-God; but, dead or living, among nations its spirit will 
prevail, and all peoples will acknowledge and follow in 
four-and-twenty years the standard of France, ever vic¬ 
torious, or miraculously raised from the dead. Such is the 
prophecy of Trithemius, confirmed by all our previsions, 
and grounded in all our hopes. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


369 


CHAPTER XXII 

THE BOOK OF HERMES 

We approach the end of onr work, and mnst here give the 
universal key and utter the final word. The universal key 
of magical works is the key of all ancient religious dogmas, 
—the key of the Kabbalah and the Bible, the little key of 
Solomon. Now, this clavicle, regarded as lost for centuries, 
has been recovered by us, and we have been able to open 
the sepulchres of the ancient world, to make the dead speak, 
to behold the monuments of the past in all their splendour, 
to understand the enigmas of every sphinx, and to penetrate 
all sanctuaries. Among the ancients the use of this key was 
permitted none but the high priests, and even its secret 
was confided onty to the flower of the initiates. Now, this 
was the key in. question: A hieroglyphic and numeral 
alphabet, expressing by characters and numbers a series of 
universal and absolute- ideas; then a scale of ten numbers, 
multiplied by four symbols, and connected with twelve 
figures representing the twelve signs of the zodiac, plus the 
four genii of the* cardinal points. 

The symbolical tetrad, represented in tho mysteries of 
Memphis and Thebes by the four forms of the sphinx—the 
man, eagle, lion, and bull—correspond with the four ele¬ 
ments of the old world, water being signified by the cup 
held by the man or aquarius*; air by the circle or nimbus 
surrounding the head of the celestial eagle; fire by the wood 
which nourishes it, by the tree fructifying in the heat of 
earth and sun, and, finally, by the sceptre of royalty, which 
the lion typifies; earth by the sword of Mithras, who each 
year immolates the sacred bull, and, together with its blood, 
pours forth that sap which gives increase to all fruits of 
earth. Now, these four signs, with all their analogies, ex¬ 
plain the one word hidden in all sanctuaries, that word 


370 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


which the bacchantes seemed to divine in their intoxication 
when they worked themselves into frenzy for Io Evohe. 
What, then, was the meaning of this mysterious term? It 
was the name of the four primitive letters of the mother- 
tongue : the Jod, symbol of the vine, or paternal sceptre of 
Noah; the He, type of the cup of libations and also of 
maternity; the Vau, which joins the two, and was depicted 
in India by the great and mysterious lingam. Such was the 
triple sign of the triad in the divine word; then the mother 
letter appeared a second time to express the fecundity of 
nature and woman, and to formulate the doctrine of uni¬ 
versal and progressive anologies decending from causes to 
effects, and ascending from effects to causes. Moreover, 
the sacred word was not pronounced; it was spelt, and read 
off in four words, which are the four sacred words— Jod 
He Yau He. 

The learned Gaffarel regards the teraphim of the He¬ 
brews, by means of which they consulted the oracles of the 
urim and thummim, as the figures of the four kabbalistic 
animals, which symbols, as we shall presently show, were 
summed up in the sphinxes or cherubs of the ark. In con¬ 
nection with the usurped Teraphim of Michas, he cites a 
curious passage from Philo, which is a complete revelation 
as to the ancient and sacerdotal origin of our Tarots. 
Gaffarel thus expresses himself: “He (Philo the Jew), 
speaking of the history concealed in the before-mentioned 
chapter of Judges, says that Michas made three images of 
young boys and three young calves, three also of a lion, an 
eagle, a dragon, and a dove, all of fine gold and silver; so 
that if any one sought him to discover a secret concerning 
his wife, he interrogated the dove; concerning his children, 
the young boy; concerning wealth, the eagle; concerning 
strength and power, the lion; concerning fecundity, the 
cherub or bull; concerning length of days, the dragon.” 
This revelation of Philo, though depreciated by Gaffarel, is 
for us of the highest importance. Here, in fact, is our key 
of the tetrad, and here also the images of the four sym- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


371 


bolicial animals found in the twenty-first key of the Tarot, 
that is, at the third septenary, thus repeating and sum¬ 
marising all the symbolism expressed by the three septen- 
aries superposed; next, the antagonisim of colors expressed 
by the dove and the dragon; the circle or Rota, formed by 
the dragon or serpent to typify length of days; finally, the 
kabbalistic divination of the entire Tarot, as practised in 
later days by the Egyptian Bohemians, whose secrets were 
divined and recovered imperfectly by Etteilla. 

We see in the Bible that the high priests consulted the 
Lord on the golden table of the holy ark, between the 
cherubs, or bull-headed and eagle-winged sphinx; that they 
consulted by the help of the Theraphim, Urim, and Thummi, 
and by the Ephod. Now, it is known that the Ephod was a 
magical square of twelve numbers and twelve words en¬ 
graved on precious stones. The word Teraphim in Hebrew 
signifies hieroglyphs or figured signs; the Urim and 
Thummi were the above and beneath, the east and west, the 
yes and no, and these signs corresponded to the two pillars 
of the Temple, Jakin and Bohas. When, therefore, the 
high priest wished to consult the oracle, he drew by lot the 
Theraphim or tablets of gold, which bore the images of the 
four sacred words, and placed them by threes round the 
rational or Ephod; that is, between the two onyx stones 
which served as clasps to the little chains of the Ephod. 
The right onyx signified Gedulah, or mercy and magnifi¬ 
cence ; the left referred to Geburah, and signified justice and 
anger. If, for example, the sign of the lion were found on 
the left side of the stone which bore the name of the tribe 
of Judah, the high priest would read the oracle thus: “The 
staff of the Lord is angered against Judah.’’ If the Thera¬ 
phim represented the man or cup, and were also found on 
the left, near the stone of Benjamin, the high priest would 
read: 4 ‘ The mercy of the Lord is weary of the offences of 
Benjamin, which violate Him in His love. Whence He 
will pour out on him the chalice of his wrath,” etc. When 
the sovereign priesthood ceased in Israel, when all oracles 


372 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


were silenced in the presence of the Word made man, and 
speaking by the mouth of the most popular and mildest of 
sages, when the ark was lost, the sanctuary profaned, and 
the temple destroyed, the mysteries of the Ephod and Thera- 
phim, no longer traced on gold and precious stones, were 
written, or, rather, drawn, by some learned kabbalists on 
ivory, parchment, gilt and silvered copper, and, finally, on 
simple cards, which were always suspected by the official 
Church as enclosing a dangerous key to its mysteries. 
Hence came those Tarots, the antiquity of which, revealed 
,to the erudite Court de Gebelin by the science of hiero¬ 
glyphs and numbers, so exercised later the doubtful per¬ 
spicacity and persistent investigation of Etteilla. Court 
de Gebelin, in the eighth volume of his “ Primeval World, ” 
gives the figure of the twenty-two keys and four aces of 
the Tarot, and demonstrates their perfect analogy with all 
symbols of the highest antiquity. He subsequently en¬ 
deavours to supply their explanation, and goes astray 
naturally, because he does not start from the universal 
and sacred tetragram, the Io Evohe of the Bacchanalia, 
the Jod He Yau He of the sanctuary, the pppp of the Kab¬ 
balah. 

Etteilla or Alliette, preoccupied entirely by his system of 
divination and the material profit to be derived from it, 
Alliette, formerly barber, having never learned French, or 
even orthography, pretended to reform and thus appro¬ 
priate the Book of Thot. In the Tarot, now become very 
scarce, which he engraved, we find the following naive ad¬ 
vertisement on the twenty-eighth card—the eight of clubs: 
“Etteilla, professor of algebra and correctors (sic) of the 
modern blunders of the ancient book of Thot, lives in the 
Rue de I’Oseille, No. 48, Paris.” Etteilla would have 
certainly done better not to have corrected the blunders of 
which he speaks; his books have degraded the ancient work 
discovered by Court de Gebelin into the domain of vulgar 
magic and fortune-telling by cards. He proves nothing 
who tries to prove too much; Etteilla furnishes another 
example of this old logical axiom; at the same time, his 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


373 


endeavours led him to a certain acquaintance with the 
Kabbalah, as may be seen in some rare passages of his un¬ 
readable works. The true initiates who were Etteilla’s 
contemporaries, the Rosicrucians, for example, and the 
Martinists, who were in possession of the true Tarot, as a 
work of Saint Martin proves, where the divisions are those 
of the Tarot, and this passage of an enemy of the Rosi¬ 
crucians: ‘‘They pretend to the possession of a volume 
from which they can learn anything that can possibly be 
found in other books which now exist or may at any time 
be produced. This volume is their reason, in which they 
find the prototype of everything that exists by the facility 
of analysing, making abstractions, forming a species of 
intellectual world, and creating all possible beings. See 
the philosophical, theosophical, microcosmic cards.” ( Con¬ 
spiracy against the Catholic Religion and Sovereigns, by the 
author of The Veil raised for the Curious. Paris: Crapard. 
1792.) The true initiates, we repeat, who held the Tarot 
secret among their greatest mysteries, carefully refrained 
from protesting against the errors of Etteilla, and left him 
to reveil instead of revealing the arcana of the true clavicles 
of Solomon. Hence it is not without profound astonish¬ 
ment that we have discovered intact and still unknown this 
key of all doctrines and all philosophies of the old world. 
I speak of it as a key, and such it truly is, having the 
circle of four decades as its ring, the scale of 22 characters 
for its trunk or body, and the three degrees of the triad 
for its wards; as such it was represented by Postel in his 
“Key of Things Kept Secret from the Foundation of the 
World.” He indicates after the following manner the oc¬ 
cult name of this key, which was known only to initiates:— 


374 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


T 

0 — — ft- 

The word may read Rota, thus signifyingthe wheel of 
Ezekiel, or Tarot, and then it is synonymous with the 
Azoth of Hermetic philosophers. It is a word which kab- 
balistically expresses the dogmatic and natural absolute; 
it is formed of the characters of the monogram of Christ, 
according to the Greeks and Hebrews. The Latin R or 
Greek P is found between the alpha and omega of the 
Apocalypse; the sacred Tau, image of the cross, encloses 
the whole word, as previously represented in our Ritual. 
Without the Tarot, the magic of the ancients is a closed 
book, and it is impossible to penetrate any of the great 
mysteries of the Kabbalah. The Tarot alone interprets the 
magic squares of Agrippa and Paracelsus, as we may satisfy 
ourselves by forming these same squares with the keys of 
the Tarot, and reading off the hieroglyphs thus collected. 
These are the seven magical squares of the planetary genii 
according to Paracelsus:— 








TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


375 


Saturn. 


2 

9 

4 

7 

T 

3 

6 

1 

8 


Jupiter. 


6 

12 12 

10 

5 

10 

11 

11 

9 

6 

7 

12 

14 

6| 4 

1 


Mars. 


14 

10 

22 

22 

18 

20 

12 

7 

20 

~2 

8 

17 

9 

9 

8 

12 

3 

9 

5 

26 

11 

23 

8 

6 

11 


The Sun. 


9 

22 

1 

32 

25 

19 

7 

ii 

27 

18 

8 

3 

19 

14 

16 

15 

23 

24 

18 

20 

22 

21 

17 

13 

22 

29 

10 

19 

26 

12 

36 

5 

35 

6 

12 

13 


Venus. 


22 

47 

18 41 

1 0 

35 

8 

25 

23 

47117 

42 

11 

29 

10 

6 

14 9 

18 

36 

12 

3 

31 

16.25 

43 

19 

37 

38 

14 

32 31 

26 

44 

20 

21 

39 

8 33 

22 

27 

45 

46 

15 

40 19 

24 

03 

27 



































































































376 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


Mercury. 


8 

52 

39 

5 

24 

61 

66 

11 

49 

15 

14 

52 

52 

12 

10 

56 

41 

43 

22 

14 

45 

19 

18 

48 

33 

34 

35 

29 

20 

38 

39 

25 

40 

6 

27 

59 

31 

30 

31 

33 

17 

47 

55 

28 

25 

43 

42 

24 

9 

51 

53 

12 

13 

51 

00 

16 

64 

12 

15 

61 

61 

6 

7 

47 


The Moon. 


37 

70 

29 

70 

21 

62 

12 

14 

41 

16 

28 

70 

30 

71 

12 

53 

14 

46 

47 

20 

11 

7 

31 

72 

22 

35 

15 

16 

48 

68 

40 

81 

32 

62 

25 

56 

57 

17 

49 

29 

7 

66 

33 

65 

25 

26 

58 

40 

56 

31 

42 

74 

34 

66 

53 

27 

59 

10 

51 

2 

41 

75 

35 

36 

68 

19 

60 

11 

65 

43 

44 

76 

77 

28 

20 

69 

61 

12 

25 60 

5 


By adding each of the columns of these squares, you will 
obtain invariably the characteristic number of the planet, 
and, finding the explanation of this number by the hiero- 
glphs of the Tarot, you proceed to seek the sense of all 
the figures, whether triangular, square, or cruciform, that 
you find to be formed by the numbers. The result of this 
operation will be a complete and profound acquaintance 
with all the allegories and mysteries concealed by the 
ancients under the symbol of each planet, or rather of each 
personification of the influences, celestial or human, upon 
all events of life. 

We have said that the twenty-two keys of the Tarot are 
the twenty-two letters of the primitive kabbalistic alphabet, 














































































































































TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


377 


and here follows a table of the variants of this alphabet 
according to divers Hebrew kabbalists. 

X Being, mind, man, or God; the comprehensible object; 
unity, mother of numbers, the first substance. 

All these ideas are hieroglyphically expressed by the 
figure of the Juggler. His body and arms form the letter 
aleph, round his head there is a nimbus in the form of oo, 
the emblem of life and the universal spirit; in front of him 
are swords, cups, and pantacles, and he uplifts the miracu¬ 
lous rod towards heaven. He has a youthful figure and 
curly hair, like Apollo or Mercury; the smile of confidence 
is on his lips, and the look of intelligence in his eyes. 

^ The house of God and man, the sanctuary, the law, the 
Gnosis, Kabbalah, the occult church, the duad, wife, 
mother. 

Hieroglyph of the Tarot, The Female Pope; a woman 
crowned with a tiara, wearing the horns of the Moon and 
Isis, her head enveloped in a mantle, the solar cross on her 
breast, and holding a book on her knees, which she conceals 
with her mantle. A protestant author of a pretended 
history of Pope Joan has met with, and used, for good or 
bad, in the interest of his thesis, two curious and ancient 
figures of the female pope or sovereign priestess of the 
Tarot. These two figures ascribe to her all the attributes of 
Isis; in one she is carrying and caressing her son Horus; 
in the other, she has long and thin hair; she is seated 
between the two pillars of the duad, has a sun with four 
rays on her breast, places one hand upon a book, and makes 
the sign of sacerdotal esotericism with the other—that is 
to say, she uplifts three fingers only, the two others being 
folded to signify mystery; a veil is behind her head, and 
on each side of her chair the flowers of the lotus bloom 
upon the sea. I strongly commiserate the unlucky scholar 
who has seen in this antique symbol nothing but a monrn 
mental portrait of his pretended Pope Joan. 


378 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


^ The word, the triad, plenitude, fecundity, nature, genera¬ 
tion in the three worlds. 

Symbol, The Empress, a woman, winged, crowned, 
seated, and uplifting a sceptre with the orb of the world at 
its end; her sign is an eagle, image of the soul and of life. 
This woman is the Yenus-Urania of the Greeks, and was 
represented by St John in his Apocalypse as the Woman 
clothed with the Sun, crowned with twelve stars, and with 
the moon beneath her feet. It is the mystical quintessence 
of the triad, spirituality, immortality, the queen of heaven. 

The porte or government of the easterns, initiation, power, 
the tetragram, the quaternary, the cubic stone, or its 
base. 

Hieroglyph, The Emperor, a sovereign whose body rep¬ 
resents a right-angled triangle, and his legs a cross, the 
image of the Athanor of the philosophers. 

Indication, demonstration, instruction, law, symbolism, 
philosophy, religion. 

Hieroglyph, The Pope, or grand hierophant. In more 
modern Tarots this sign is replaced by the image of Jupiter. 
The grand hierophant, seated between the two pillars of 
Hermes and of Solomon, makes the sign of esotericism, and 
leans upon a cross with three horizontals of triangular 
form. Two inferior ministers kneel before him. Having 
above him the capitals of the two pillars, and below him 
the two heads of the assistants, he is thus the centre of the 
quinary, and represents the divine pentagram, giving its 
complete meaning. As a fact, the pillars are necessity or 
law, the heads liberty or action. A line may be drawn 
from each pillar to each head, and two lines from each 
pillar to each of the two heads. Thus a square, divided by 
a cross into four triangles, is obtained, and in the middle of 
this cross is the grand hierophant, we might almost say like 



THE CHARIOT OF HERMES, 

Seventh Key of the Tarot. 


















































































































380 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


the garden spider in the centre of his web, were such a 
comparison becoming to the things of truth, glory, and 
light. 

H Sequence, interlacement, lingam, entanglement, union, 
embrace, strife, antagonism, combination, equilibrium. 

Hieroglyph, man between Vice and Virtue. Above him 
shines the sun of truth, and in this sun is love, bending his 
bow and threatening Vice with his shaft. In the order of 
the ten Sephiroth, this symbol corresponds to Tiphereth— 
that is, to idealism and beauty. The number six represents 
the antagonism of the two triads, that is, absolute negation 
and absolute affirmation. It is therefore the number of 
toil and liberty, and for this reason it connects also with 
moral beauty and glory. 

j Weapon, sword, cherub’s sword of fire, the sacred sep¬ 
tenary, triumph, royalty, priesthood. 

Hieroglyph, a cubic chariot with four pillars and an azure 
and starry drapery. In the chariot, between the four pil¬ 
lars, a victor crowned with a circle adorned with three ra¬ 
diant golden pentagrams. Upon his breast are three super¬ 
posed squares, on his shoulders the urim and thummim of 
the sovereign sacrificer, represented by the two crescents of 
the moon in Gedulah and Geburah; in his hand is a sceptre 
surmounted by a globe, square, and triangle; his attitude is 
proud and tranquil. A double sphinx or two sphinxes 
joined at the lower parts are harnessed to the chariot; they 
are pulling in opposite directions, but one is turning his 
head so that they are looking in the same direction. The 
sphinx with head turned is black, the other is white. On 
the square which forms the fore part of the chariot is the 
Indian lingam surmounted by the flying sphere of the 
Egyptians. This hieroglyph, which we reproduce exactly, 
is perhaps the most beautiful and complete of all those 
which are comprised in the clavicle of the Tarot. 

pj Balance, attraction and repulsion, life, terror, promise , 
and threat. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


381 


Hieroglyph, Justice with sword and balance. 

O Good, horror of evil, morality, wisdom. 

Hieroglyph, a sage leaning on his staff, holding a lamp in 
front of him, and completely enveloped in his cloak. The 
inscription is The Hermit or Capuchin, on account of the 
hood of his oriental cloak; his true name, however, is 
Prudence, and he thus completes the four cardinal virtues 
which seemed imperfect to Court de Gebelin and Etteilla. 

' Principle, manifestation, praise, manly honour, phallus, 
virile fecundity, paternal sceptre. 

Hieroglyph, The Wheel of Fortune, that is to say, the 
cosmogonical wheel of Ezekiel, with a Hermanubis ascend¬ 
ing on the right, a Typhon descending on the left, and a 
sphinx in equilibrium above, holding a sword between his 
lion’s claws—an admirable symbol, disfigured by Etteilla, 
who replaced Typhon by a wolf, Hermanubis by a mouse, 
and the sphinx by an ape, an allegory characteristic of 
Etteilla’s Kabbalah. 

3 The hand in the act of grasping and holding. 

Hieroglyph, Strength, a woman crowned with the vital 
oo closes, quietly and without effort, the jaws of a raging 
lion. 

<■> Example, instruction, public teaching. 

Symbol, a man hanging by one foot, with his hands bound 
behind his back, so that his body makes a triangle with 
apex downwards, and his legs a cross above the triangle. 
The gallows is in the form of a Hebrew Tau, and the two 
uprights are trees, from each of which six branches have 
been lopped. We have previously explained this symbol 
of sacrifice and the finished work. 

D The heaven of Jupiter and Mars, domination and force, 
new birth, creation and destruction 


382 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


Hieroglyph, Death, reaping crowned heads in a meadow 
where men are growing. 

2 The heaven of the Sun, climates, seasons, motion, changes 
of life, which is ever new yet ever the same. 

Hieroglyph, Temperance, an angel with the sign of the 
sun upon her forehead, and on the breast the square and 
triangle of the septenary, pours from one chalice into an¬ 
other the two essences which compose the elixir of life. 

q The heaven of Mercury, occult, science, magic, commerce, 
eloquence, mystery, moral force. 

Hieroglyph, Tpie Devil, the goat of Mendes, or the 
Baphomet of the Temple, with all his pantheistic attributes. 
This is the only hieroglyph which was properly understood 
and correctly interpreted by Etteilla. 

y The heaven of the Moon, alterations, subversions, changes , 
failings. 

Hieroglyph, a tower struck by lightning, probably that 
of Babel. Two persons, doubtless Nimrod and his false 
prophet or minister, are precipitated from the summit of 
the ruins. One of the personages in his fall perfectly 
represents the letter gnaiin. 

^ The heaven of the soul, outpourings of thought, moral in¬ 
fluence of the idea on forms, immortality. 

Hieroglyph, the burning star and eternal youth. We 
have already described this symbol. 

^ The elements, the visible world, the reflected light, ma¬ 
terial fonns, symbolism. 

Hieroglyph, the moon, dew, a crab rising in the water 
towards land, a dog and wolf barking at the moon and 
chained to the base of two towers, a path lost in the 
horizon and sprinkled with blood. 

^ Composites, the head, apex, prince of heaven. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


383 


Hieroglyph, a radiant sun, and two naked children tak¬ 
ing hands in a fortified enclosure. Other Tarots substitute 
a spinner unwinding destinies, and others, again, a naked 
child mounted on a white horse and displaying a scarlet 
standard. 

Vegetative principle, generative virtue of the earth, eter¬ 
nal life . 

Hieroglyph, The Judgment. A genius sounds the trum¬ 
pet and the dead rise from their tombs. These persons who 
are living and were dead, are a man, woman, and child— 
the triad of human life. 

The sensitive principle, the flesh, eternal life. 

Hieroglyph, The Fool. A man in the garb of a fool, 
wandering without aim, burdened with a wallet, full, no 
doubt, of his follies and vices; his disordered clothes dis¬ 
cover his shame; he is being bitten by a tiger, and does 
not know how to escape or defend himself. 

^ The microcosm, the sum of all in all. 

Hieroglyph, Kether, or the kabbalistic crown, between 
the four mysterious animals. In the middle of the crown 
is Truth holding a rod in each hand. 

Such are the twenty-two keys of the Tarot, which ex¬ 
plain all its numbers. Thus, the juggler, or key of the 
unities, explains the four aces with their quadruple pro¬ 
gressive signification in the three worlds and in the first 
principle. So also the ace of deniers or of the circle is the 
soul of the world; the ace of swords is militant intelligence; 
the ace of cups is loving intelligence; the ace of clubs is 
creative intelligence; they are also the principles of motion, 
progress, fecundity, and power. Each number, multiplied 
by a key, gives another number, which, explained in turn 
by the keys, completes the philosophical and religious revela¬ 
tion contained in each sign. Now, each of the fifty-six 
cards can be multiplied in turn by the twenty-two keys; a 


384 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


series of combinations thus results, giving all the most 
astonishing conclusions of revelation and of light. It is a 
truly philosophical machine, which keeps the mind from 
going astray while leaving its initiative and liberty; it is 
mathematics applied to the absolute, the alliance of the 
positive and the ideal, a lottery of thoughts as exact as 
numbers, perhaps the simplest and grandest conception of 
human genius. 

The mode of reading the hieroglyphs of the Tarot is to 
arrange them in a square or triangle, placing equal num¬ 
bers in antagonism, and conciliating them by the unequal. 
Four signs invariably express the absolute in a given order, 
and are explained by a fifth. Hence the solution of all 
magical questions is the pentagram, and all antinomies 
are explained by harmonious unity. So arranged, the Tarot 
is a veritable oracle, and replies to all possible questions 
with more precision and infallibility than the Android of 
Albertus Magnus. An imprisoned person with no other 
book than the Tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a 
few years acquire universal knowledge, and would be able 
to speak on all subjects with unequalled learning and inex¬ 
haustible eloquence. In fact, this wheel is the true key to 
the Oratorical Art and the Grand Art of Raymund Lully; 
it is the true secret of the transmutation of shadows into 
light; it is the first and most important of all the arcana of 
the great work. By means of this universal key of symbol¬ 
ism, all allegories of India, Egypt and Judea are illu¬ 
minated; the Apocalypse of St John is a kabbalistic book 
the sense of which is rigorously indicated by the numbers of 
the Urim, Thummim, Theraphim, and Ephod, which are 
all resumed and completed by the Tarot; the old sanc¬ 
tuaries have no longer mysteries, and the significance of the 
objects of the Hebrew cultus is for the first time compre¬ 
hensible. Who does not perceive in the golden table, 
crowned and supported by cherubim, which covered the ark 
of the covenant, the same symbols as those of the twenty- 
first Tarot key? The ark was a hieroglyphical synthesis 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


385 


of the whole kabbalistic dogma; it included the jod or 
blossoming staff of Aaron, the he, or cup, the gomor contain¬ 
ing the manna, the two tables of the law—an analogous 



symbol to that of the sword of justice—and the manna kept 
in the gomor, four objects which interpret wonderfully the 
letters of the divine tetragram. Gaffarel has learnedly 
proved that the cherubim, or cherubs of the ark, were in 
the likeness of bulls, but what he did not know was that, 
instead of two, there were four—two at each end, as the 
text expressly says—though it has been misconstrued for 
the most part by commentators. The eighteenth and nine¬ 
teenth verses of the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus should 
read thus: “And thou shalt make two bulls or sphinxes 
of beaten gold on each side of the oracle. And thou shalt 
make the one looking this way and the second that way.” 
The cherubs or sphinxes were, in fact, coupled by twos on 
each side of the ark, and their heads were turned to the four 
corners of the mercy-seat, which they covered with their 
wings rounded archwise, thus overshadowing the crown of 
the golden table, which they sustained upon their shoulders, 
facing one another at the openings and looking at the pro¬ 
pitiatory (see the figure on p. 371). The ark, moreover, 
had three parts or stages, representing Atziluth, Jetzirah, 
and Briah—the three worlds of the kabbalah: the base of 
the coffer, to which were fitted the four rings of two levers 
analogous to the pillars of the temple, Jakin and Bohas; 














































































































386 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


the body of the coffer, on which the sphinxes appeared in 
relief ; and the cover, overshadowed by the wings. The base 
represented the kingdom of salt, to use the terminology of 
the adepts of Hermes; the coffer, the realm of mercury or 
azoth; and the cover, the realm of sulphur or of fire. The 
other objects of the cultus were not less allegorical, but 
would require a special treatise to describe and explain 
them. 

Saint Martin, in his Natural Table of the Correspondences 
between God, Man, and the Universe, followed, as we have 
said, the division of the Tarot, giving an extended mystical 
commentary upon the twenty-two keys, but he carefully re¬ 
frained from stating whence he derived his plan, and from 
revealing the hieroglyphics on which he commented. Postel 
shewed similar discretion, naming! the Tarot only in a 
diagram of the key to his arcana, and referring to it in the 
rest of his book under the title of the Genesis of Enoch. 
The personage of Enoch, author of the primeval sacred 
book, is in effect identical with that of Thoth among the 
Egyptians, Cadmus among the Phoenicians, the Palamedes 
among the Greeks. We have obtained in an extraordinary 
manner a sixteenth century medal, which is a key of the 
Tarot. We scarcely know whether to state that this medal, 
and the place where it was deposited, were shown us in 
dream by the divine Paracelsus; in any case, the medal is 
in our possession. On one side it depicts the juggler in a 
German costume of the sixteenth century, holding his girdle 
with one hand, and with the other the pentagram. On a 
table in front of him, between an open book and a closed 
purse, are ten deniers or talismans, arranged in two lines of 
three each and a square of four; the feet of the table form 
two pj, and those of the juggler two inverted The obverse 
side of the medal contains the letters of the alphabet, ar¬ 
ranged on a magical square, as follows:— 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


387 


A 

B 

C 

D 

E 

F 

Gr 

H 

I 

K 

L 

M 

N 

0 

P 

Q 

R 

S 

T 

Y 

X Y Z 

N 


It will be observed that this alphabet has only twenty- 
two letters, the V and N being duplicated, and that it is 
arranged in four quinaries, with a quaternary for base and 
key. The four final letters are two combinations of the 
duad and the triad, and, read kabbalistically, they form the 
word Azoth, by rendering to the shapes of the letters their 
value in primitive Hebrew, taking N for Z as it is in 
Latin, Y for the Hebrew ^ vau, which is pronounced 0 
between two vowels, or leters having the value of vowels, 
and X for the primitive tau, which had precisely the same 
figure. The entire Tarot is thus explained in this wonder¬ 
ful medal, which is worthy of Paracelsus, and we hold it at 
the disposal of the curious. The letters arranged by four 
times five are summed by the word^Z^, analogous to that 
of and of INRI, and containing all the mysteries of 

the Kabbalah. 

The book of the Tarot, being of such high scientific im¬ 
portance, it is desirable that it should not be further altered. 
We have examined the collection of ancient Tarots pre¬ 
served in the Imperial Library, and have thus collected all 
the hieroglyphs, of which we have given a description. An 
important work still remains to be done—the publication of 
a really complete and well-executed exemplar. We shall, 
perhaps, undertake the task. 

Vestiges of the Tarot are found among all nations. As 
we have said, the Italian is, perhaps, the most faithful and 
best preserved, but it may be further perfected by precious 
indications derived from the Spanish varieties. The two of 
cups, for example, in the Naibi is completely Egyptian, 
showing two archaic vases with ibis handles, superposed on 



388 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


a cow. A unicorn is represented in the middle of the four 
of deniers; the three of cups exhibits the figure of Isis 
issuing from a vase, while two ibises issue from two other 
vases, one with a crown for the goddess, and one holding a 
lotus, which he seems to be offering for her acceptance. The 
four acres bear the image of the hieratic and sacred ser¬ 
pent, while in some specimens the seal of Solomon is placed 
at the centre of the four of deniers, instead of the sym¬ 
bolical unicorn. The German Tarots have suffered great 
alteration, and scarcely do more than preserve the number 
of the keys, which are crowded w r ith grotesque or panta- 
gruelian figures. We have a Chinese Tarot before us, and 
the Imperial Library contains samples of others that are 
similar. M. Paul Boiteau, in his remarkable work on play¬ 
ing-cards, has given some admirably executed specimens. 
The Chinese Tarot preserves several primeval emblems; the 
deniers and swords are plainly distinguishable, but it would 
be less easy to discover the cups and clubs. 

It was at the epoch of the Gnostic and Manichaean heresies 
that the Tarot must have been lost to the Church, at which 
time also the meaning of the divine Apocalypse perished. 
It was understood no longer that the seven seals of this 
kabbalistic book are seven pantacles, the representation 
of which we give (see p. 376), and that these pantacles 
are explained by the analogies of the numbers, characters, 
and figures of the Tarot. Thus the universal tradition of the 
one religion was a moment broken, darkness or doubt spread 
over the whole earth, and it seemed, in the eyes of ignorance, 
that true Catholicism, the universal revelation, had briefly 
disappeared. The explanation of the book of St John by 
the characters of the Kabbalah will be an entirely new 
revelation, though foreseen by several distinguished magi, 
one among whom, M. Augustin Chaho, thus expresses him¬ 
self :— 

“The poem of the Apocalypse presupposes in the young 
evangelist a complete system and traditions individually 
developed by himself. It is written in the form of a vision, 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


389 


and binds in a brilliant framework of poetry the whole 
erudition, the whole thought of African civilisation. An 
inspired bard, the author touches upon a series of ruling 
events; he draws in bold outlines the history of society from 
cataclysm to cataclysm, and even further still. The truths 
which he reveals are prophecies brought from far and wide, 
of which he is the resounding echo. He is the voice which 
cries, the voice which chants the harmonies of the desert, 
and prepares the paths for the light. His speech peals forth 
with mastery and compels faith, for he caries among savage 
nations the oracles of lao, and unveils Him who is the First- 
Born of the Sun for the admiration of civilisations to come. 
The theory of the four ages is found in the Apocalypse, as 
it is found in the books of Zoroaster and in the Bible. The 
gradual reconstruction of primeval federations, and of the 
reign of God among peoples emancipated from the yoke of 
tyrants and the bonds of error, are clearly foretold for the 
end of the fourth age, and the renovation of the cataclysm, 
exhibited at first from afar, even unto the consummation of 
time. The description of the cataclysm and its duration; 
the new world emerging from the waves, and spreading in 
all its beauty under heaven; the great serpent, bound for 
a time by an angel in the depths of the abyss; finally, the 
dawn of that age to come, prophesied by the Word, who 
appeared to the apostle at the beginning of his poem: ‘ His 
head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, 
and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto 
fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as 
the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand 
seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged 
sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his 
strength. ’ Such is Ormuz, Osiris, Chourien, the Lamb, the 
Christ, the Ancient of Days, the man of the time and the 
river celebrated by Daniel. He is the first and the last, who 
was, who must be, alpha and omega, beginning and end. 
He holds the key of mysteries in his hands; he opens the 
great abyss of the central fire, where death sleeps beneath 


390 TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 



ArocALYPTic Key. 


Apocalyptic Key. 

The Seven Seals of St John. 













































































TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


391 


his canopy of darkness, where sleeps the great serpent await¬ 
ing the wakening of the ages. ’ ’ 

The author connects this sublime allegory of St John 
with that of Daniel, wherein the four forms of the sphinx 
are applied to the chief periods of history, where the Man- 
Sun, the Word-Light, consoles and instructs the seer. 

“The prophet Daniel beholds a sea tossed by the four 
winds of heaven, and beasts differing one from another 
come out of the depths of the ocean. The empire of all 
things on earth was given them for a time, two times, and 
the dividing of time. They are four who so come forth. 
The first beast, symbol of the solar race of seers, comes from 
the region of Africa, resembling a lion and having eagle’s 
wings; the heart of a man was given it. The second beast, 
emblem of the northern conquerors, who reigned by iron 
during the second age, was like unto a bear; it had three 
ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it, images of 
the three great conquering families, and they said unto it: 
Arise, devour much flesh. After the apparition of the 
fourth beast, there were thrones raised up, and the Ancient 
of Days, the Christ of seers, the Lamb of the first age, was 
manifested. His garment was of dazzling whiteness, his 
head radiant; his throne, whence came forth living flames, 
was borne upon burning wheels; a flame of swift fire shone 
in his countenance; legions of angels or stars sparkled round 
him. The judgment was set, the allegorical books were 
opened. The new Christ came with the clouds of heaven 
and came to the Ancient of Days, and there were given him 
power, honour, and a kingdom over all peoples, tribes, and 
tongues. Then Daniel came near unto one of them that 
stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. And it was 
answered him that the four beasts were four powers which 
should reign successively over the earth.” M. Chaho pro¬ 
ceeds to explain a variety of images, strikingly analogous, 
which are found in almost all sacred books. His observa¬ 
tions at this point are worthy of remark. 

“In every primitive logos, the parallel between physical 


392 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


correspondences and moral relations is established on the 
same roots. Each word carries its material and sensible 
definition, and this living language is as perfect and true as 
it is simple and natural in man the creator. Let the seer 
express by the same word, slightly modified, the sun, day, 
light, truth, and applying the same epithet to a white sun 
and to a lamb, let him say, Lamb or Christ, instead of sun , 
and sun instead of truth, light, civilisation, and there is no 
allegory, but there are true correspondences seized and ex¬ 
pressed by inspiration. But when the children of night say 
in their incoherent and barbarous dialect, sun, day, light, 
truth, lamb, the wise correspondence so clearly expressed by 
the primitive logos becomes effaced and disappears, and, by 
simple translation, the lamb and the sun become allegorical 
beings, symbols. Remark, in effect, that the word allegory 
itself signifies, in Celtic definition, change of discourse, trans¬ 
lation. The observation we have made applies exactly to 
all barbarous cosmogonical language. Seers made use of 
the same inspired radical to express nourishment and in¬ 
struction. Is not the science of truth the nourishment of 
the soul ? Thus, the scroll of papyrus, or the book, eaten by 
the prophet Ezekiel; the little volume which the angel gave 
as fbod to the author of the Apocalypse; the festivities of 
the magical palace of Asgard, to which Gangler was in¬ 
vited by Har the Sublime; the miraculous multiplication of 
seven small loaves narrated by the Evangelists of the 
Nazarene; the living bread which Jesus-Sun gave his dis¬ 
ciples to eat, saying, ‘ This is my body, ’ and a host of similar 
occurrences, are a repetition of the same allegory: the life 
of souls who are nourished by truth—truth, which mul¬ 
tiplies without ever diminishing, but, on the contrary, in¬ 
creases in the measure that it nourishes. 

1 ‘ Exalted by a noble sentiment of patriotism, dazzled by 
the idea of an immense revolution, let a revealer of hidden 
things come forward and seek to popularise the discoveries of 
science among gross and ignorant men, destitute of the most 
simple elementary notions; let him say, for example, that the 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


393 


earth revolves, and that it is shaped like an egg; what re¬ 
source has the barbarian who hears him except to believe? 
Is it not plain that every proposition of this nature becomes 
for him a dogma from on high, an article of faith? And is 
not the veil of a wise allegory sufficient to make it a mythos ? 
In the schools of seers the terrestrial globe was represented 
by an egg of pasteboard or painted wood, and when the 
young children were asked, ‘What is this eggV they an¬ 
swered, ‘It is the earth.’ Those older children, the bar¬ 
barians, hearing this, repeated, after the little children of 
the seers:—‘ The world is an egg. ’ But they understood 
thereby the physical, material world, and the seers the geo¬ 
graphical, ideal, image world, created by mind and the logos. 
As a fact, the priests of Egypt represented mind, intelli¬ 
gence, Kneph, with an egg placed upon his lips, to express 
clearly that the egg was here only a comparison, an image, 
a mode of speech. Choumountou, the philosopher of the 
Ezour-Vedam, explains after the same manner to the fanatic 
Biache what must be understood by the golden egg of 
Brahma.” 

We must not wholly despair of a period which still con¬ 
cerns itself with these serious and reasonable researches; we 
have cited these pages of M. Chaho with great mental satis¬ 
faction and profound sympathy. Here is no longer the 
negative and desolating criticism of Dupuis and Yolney, 
but tendency towards one faith and one worship connecting 
all the future with all the past; it is the exoneration of all 
great men falsely accused of superstition and idolatry; it 
is, finally, the justification of God Himself, that sun of in¬ 
telligences who is never veiled for just souls and pure 
hearts. 

‘ ‘ Great and pre-eminent is the seer, the initiate, the elect 
of nature and of supreme reason,” cries the author once 
more, in concluding what we have just cited. “His alone is 
that faculty of imitation which is the principle of his per¬ 
fection, while its inspirations, swift as a lightning flash, 
direct creations and discoveries. His alone is a perfect 


394 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


Word of conformity, propriety, flexibility, wealth, creating 
harmony of thought by physical reaction—of thought, 
whereof the perceptions, still independent of language, ever 
reflect nature exactly reproduced in his impressions, well 
judged and well expressed in its correspondences. His 
alone is light, science, truth, because imagination, confined 
to its passive secondary part, never governs reason, the 
natural logic which results from the comparison of ideas 
which come into being, extend in the same proportion as 
his needs, and because the circle of his knowledge enlarges 
thus by degrees without intermixture of false judgments 
and errors. His alone is a light infinitely progressive, be¬ 
cause the rapid multiplication of population, after terres¬ 
trial renovations, composes in a few centuries a new society 
in all the imaginable moral and political correspondences 
of its destiny; and we might add, his alone is absolute light. 
The man of our time is immutable in himself; he changes 
no more than nature, in which he is rooted. The social 
conditions which surround him alone determine the de¬ 
gree of his perfection, of which the bounds are virtue, holi¬ 
ness of man, and his happiness in the law. ’ ’ 

After such elucidations, will any one ask the utility of 
the occult sciences ? Will they treat with the disdain of 
mysticism and illuminism these living mathematics, these 
proportions of ideas and forms, this revelation permanent 
in the universal reason, this emancipation of mind, this im¬ 
mutable basis provided for faith, this omnipotence revealed 
to will? Children in search of illusions, are you disap¬ 
pointed because we offer you marvels? Once a man said 
to us, “ Raise up the devil, and I will believe in you. ” We 
answered, “You ask too little; we will not make the devil 
appear but vanish from the whole world; we will chase him 
from your dreams!” The devil is ignorance, darkness, 
chaotic thought, deformity. Awake, sleeper of the middle 
ages! See you not that it is day? See you not the light 
of God filling all nature? Where now will the destroyed 
prince of perdition dare to shew himself? 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


395 


It remains for us to state our conclusions and to define 
the end and application of this work in the religious and 
philosophical order, and in the order of positive and ma¬ 
terial realisations. As regards the religious order, we have 
demonstrated that the practices of religious worships can¬ 
not be indifferent, that the magic of religions is in their 
rites, that their moral force is in the triadic hierarchy, and 
that the base, principle, and synthesis of the hierarchy is 
unity. We have demonstrated the universal unity and or¬ 
thodoxy of dogma, clothed successively with various alle¬ 
gorical veils, and we have followed the truth saved by 
Moses from profanation in Egypt, preserved in the kab¬ 
balah of the prophets, emancipated by the Christian school 
from the slavery of the pharisees, attracting all the poetic 
and generous aspirations of Greek and Roman civilisation, 
protesting against a new pharisaism more corrupt than the 
first, with the great saints of the middle ages and the bold 
thinkers of the Renaissance. We have exhibited, I say, that 
truth always universal, always living, alone conciliating 
reason and faith, science and submission; the truth of being 
demonstrated by being, of harmony demonstrated by har¬ 
mony, of reason manifested by reason. By revealing for 
the first time to the world the mysteries of magic we have 
not sought to revive practices entombed beneath the ruins 
of ancient civilisations, but would say to humanity in our 
day that it is also called to create itself immortal and 
omnipotent by its works. Liberty does not offer itself, it 
must be seized, says a modern writer: it is the same with 
science, for which reason to divulge absolute truth is never 
useful to the vulgar. But at an epoch when the sanctuary 
has been devastated and has fallen into ruins, because its 
key has been thrown over the hedges to the profit of no 
one, I have deemed it my duty to pick up that key, and I 
offer it to him who can take it; in his turn he will be 
doctor of the nations and liberator of the world. Fables 
and leading-strings are needed, and will always be needed 
by children, but it is not necessary that those who hold the 


396 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


leading-strings should also be children, lending a ready ear 
to fables. Let the most absolute science, let the highest 
reason, become the possession of the chiefs of the people; 
let the priestly art and the royal art take up once more the 
double sceptre of antique initiations, and the world will re¬ 
issue from chaos. Burn no more holy images, destroy no 
more temples; temples and images are necessary for man; 
but drive out the merchants from the house of prayer; 
let the blind no longer be leaders of the blind; reconstruct 
the hierarchy of intelligence and holiness, and recognise 
only those who know as the teachers of those who believe. 
Our book is catholic, and if the revelations it contains are 
likely to alarm the conscience of the simple, we are consoled 
by the thought that they will not read them. We write 
for unprejudiced men, and have no wish to flatter irreligion 
any more than fanaticism. If there be anything essentially 
free and inviolable in the world, it is belief. By science 
and persuasion we must endeavour to lead bewrayed im¬ 
aginations from the absurd, but it would be investing their 
errors with all the dignity and truth of the martyr to either 
threaten or constrain them. 

Faith is nothing but superstition and folly if it have not 
reason for its basis, and we cannot suppose that which we 
do not know except by analogy with what we know. To 
define what we are unacquainted with is presumptuous 
ignorance; to affirm positively what one does not know is 
to lie. So is faith an aspiration and a desire. So be it; I 
desire it to be so; such is the last word of all professions of 
faith. Faith, hope, and charity are three such inseparable 
sisters that they can be taken one for another. Thus, in 
religion, universal and hierarchic orthodoxy, restoration of 
temples in all their splendour, re-establishment of all cere¬ 
monies in their primitive pomp, hierarchic instruction of 
symbols, mysteries, miracles, legends for children, light for 
grown men who will beware of scandalising little ones in 
the symplicity of their faith; this in religion is our whole 
utopia, and it is also the desire and need of humanity. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


397 


Coming now to philosophy, our own is that of realism 
and positivism. Being is by reason of the being of which 
no one doubts. All exists for us by science. To know is 
to be. Science and its object become identified in the 
intellectual life of him who knows. To doubt is to be 
ignorant. Now, a thing of which we are ignorant does not 
as yet exist for us. To live intellectually is to learn. 
Being developes and amplifies by science. The first con¬ 
quest of science, and the first result of the exact sciences, 
is the sentiment of reason. The laws of nature are algebraic. 
Thus, the sole reasonable faith is the adhesion of the stu¬ 
dent to theorems, the entire essential justice of which is 
outside his knowledge, though its applications and results 
are sufficiently demonstrated to his mind. Thus, the true 
philosopher believes in what is, and does not admit a poster¬ 
iori that all is reasonable. But no more charlatanism in 
philosophy, no more empiricism, no more system! The 
study of being and its compared realities! A metaphysic of 
nature! Then away with mysticism! No more dreams in 
philosophy; philosophy is not a poesy, but the pure mathe¬ 
matics of realities, physical and moral. Leave unto religion 
the freedom of its infinite aspirations, and let it leave in 
turn to science the exact conclusions of absolute experi- 
mentalism. 

Man is the son of his works; he is what he wills to be; 
he is the image of the God he makes; he is the realisation 
of his ideal. Should his ideal want basis, the whole edifice 
of his immortality collapses. Philosophy is not the ideal, 
but it serves as a foundation for the ideal. The known is 
for us the measure of the unknown; by the visible we ap¬ 
preciate the invisible; sensations are to thoughts even as 
thoughts to aspirations. Science is a celestial trigonometry; 
one of the sides of the absolute triangle is the nature which 
is submitted to our investigations; the second is our soul, 
which embraces and reflects nature; the third is the abso¬ 
lute, in which our soul enlarges. No more atheism possible 
henceforward, for we no longer pretend to define God. 


398 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


God is for us the most perfect and best of intelligent 
beings, and the ascending hierarchy of beings sufficiently 
demonstrates his existence. Do not let us ask for more, 
but, to be ever understanding him better, let us grow per¬ 
fect by ascending towards him. No more ideology; being 
is being, and cannot perfectionise save according to the 
real laws of being. Observe, and do not*prejudge; exercise 
our faculties, do not falsify them; enlarge the domain of 
life in life; behold truth in truth! Everything is possible 
to him who wills only what is true! Rest in nature, study, 
know, then dare; dare to will, dare to act, and be silent! 
No more hatred of anyone. Everyone reaps what he sows. 
The consequence of works is fatal, and to judge and chas¬ 
tise the wicked is for the supreme reason. He who enters 
into a blind alley must retrace his steps or be broken. 
Warn him gently, if he can still hear you, but human lib¬ 
erty must take its course. We are not the judges of one 
another. Life is a battle-field. Do not pause in the fight¬ 
ing on account of those who fall, but avoid trampling them. 
Then comes the victory, and the wounded on both sides, be¬ 
come brothers by suffering and before humanity, will meet 
in the ambulances of the conquerors. 

Such are the consequences of the philosophical dogma of 
Hermes; such has been from all time the ethic of true 
adepts; such is the philosophy of the Rosicrucian inheritors 
of all the ancient wisdoms; such is the secret doctrine of 
those associations that are treated as subversive of the 
public order, and have ever been accused of conspiring 
against thrones and altars. The true adept, far from dis¬ 
turbing the public order, is its firmest supporter. He has 
too great a respect for liberty to desire anarchy; child of 
the light, he loves harmony, and knows that darkness begets 
confusion. He accepts everything that is, and denies only 
what is not. He wills true religion, practical, universal, 
full of faith, palpable, realised in all life; he wills it to 
have a wise and powerful priesthood, surrounded by all the 
virtues and all the prestige of faith. He wills the universal 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


399 


orthodoxy, the absolute, hierarchic, apostolic, sacramental, 
incontestable, and uncontested catholicity. He wills an 
experimental philosophy, real, mathematical, modest in its 
conclusions, untiring in its researches, scientific in its 
progress. Who, therefore, can be against us if God and 
reason are with us? Does it matter if man prejudge and 
slander us ? Our entire justification is in our thoughts and 
our works. We come not, like CEdipus, to destroy the 
sphinx of symbolism; we seek, on the contrary, to resus¬ 
citate it. The sphinx devours only blind interpreters; and 
he who slays it has not known how to divine it properly; 
it must be subdued, enchained, and compelled to follow us. 
The sphinx is the living palladium of humanity, it is the 
conquest of the King of Thebes; it would have been the 
salvation of CEdipus, had CEdipus completely divined its 
enigma! 

In the positive and material order, what must be con¬ 
cluded from this work? Is magic a force which science 
may abandon to the boldest and wickedest? Is it a cheat 
and falsehood of those who are skilled in fascinating the 
ignorant and feeble ? Is the philosophical mercury the ex¬ 
ploitation of credulity by address? Those who have un¬ 
derstood us know already how to answer these questions. 
In these days, magic can be no longer the art of fascina¬ 
tions and illusions; those only who wish to be deceived can 
be deceived now. But the narrow and rash incredulity of 
the last century is denied in totality by nature herself. We 
are environed with prophecies and miracles; doubt once un¬ 
wisely denied them; now, science explains them. No, 
Monsieur le Comte de Mirville, a destroyed spirit is not 
allowed to disturb the empire of God! No, things unknown 
cannot be explained by things impossible! No, invisible 
beings are not permitted to deceive, torment, seduce, and 
even kill the living creatures of God, men, already so 
ignorant, and scarce able to combat their own delusions! 
Those who told you all this in your childhood, Monsieur le 
Comte, have deceived you, and if you were child enough 


400 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


once to listen to them, be man enough now to disbelieve 
them. Man is himself the creator of his heaven and hell, 
and there are no demons except our own follies. Minds 
chastised by truth are corrected by the chastisement, and 
dream no more of disturbing the world. If Satan exist, he 
can be only the most unfortunate, most ignorant, most 
humiliated, and most impotent of beings. The existence of 
a universal agent of life, of a living fire, of an astral light, 
is demonstrated by facts. Magnetism enables us to under¬ 
stand to-day the miracles of old magic; the facts of second 
sight, aspirations, sudden cures, thought-reading, are now 
admitted and familiar things, even among our children. 
But the tradition of the ancients has been lost, discoveries 
have been regarded as new, the last word is sought about 
observed phenomena, minds grow excited over meaningless 
manifestations, fascinations are experienced without being 
understood. We say, therefore, to table-turners: These 
prodigies are not novel; you can perform even greater 
wonders if you study the laws of nature. And what will 
follow a new acquaintance with these powers? A new 
career opened to the activity and intelligence of man, the 
battle of life reorganised with arms more perfect, and the 
possibility restored to the flower of intelligence^ of once 
more becoming the masters of all destinies, by providing 
true priests and great kings for the world to come! 


HERE ENDS THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC. 


SUPPLEMENT TO THE RITUAL 


THE NUCTEMERON OF APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 

The Greek text was first published after an ancient manu¬ 
script, by Gilbert Gautrinus, in De Yita et Morte Moysis, 
Lib. III., p. 206; and subsequently reproduced by Laurent 
Moshemius in his Sacred and Historico-Critical Observa¬ 
tions. Amsterdam, 1721. Translated and interpreted fcr 
the first time by Eliphas Levi. 

Nuctemeron signifies the day of the night or the night 
illumined by day. It is analogous to the “Light Issuing 
from Darkness,’’ which is the title of a well-known Her¬ 
metic work. It may also be translated The Light of Oc¬ 
cultism. This monument of transcendent Assyrian magic 
is sufficiently curious to make it superfluous to enlarge on 
its importance. We have not merely evoked Apollonius, 
we have possibly resuscitated him. 

THE NUCTEMERON 

* 

The First Hour. 

In unity, the demons chant the praises of God; they lose 
their malice and fury. 

The Second Hour. 

By the duad, the Zodiacal fish chant the praises of God; 
the fiery serpents interlace about the caduceus, and the 
lightning becomes harmonious. 

The Third Hour. 

The serpents of the Hermetic caduceus entwine three 
lines; Cerberus opens his triple jaw, and fire chants the 
praises of God with the three tongues of the lightning. 

401 




402 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


The Fourth Hour. 

At the fourth hour the soul revisits the tombs; the magi¬ 
cal lamps are lighted at the four corners of the circle; it is 
the time of enchantments and illusions. 

The Fifth Hour. 

The voice of the great waters celebrates the God of the 
heavenly spheres. 

The Sixth Hour. 

The spirit believes itself immovable; it beholds the in¬ 
fernal monsters swarm down upon it, and does not fear. 

The Seventh Hour. 

A fire, which imparts life to all animated beings, is di¬ 
rected by the will of pure men. The initiate stretches forth 
his hand, and pains are assuaged. 

The Eighth Hour. 

The stars utter speech to one another; the soul of the 
suns corresponds with the exhalation of the flowers; chains 
of harmony create correspondence between all natural 
things. 

The Ninth Hour. 

The number which must not be divulged. 

The Tenth Hour. 

The key of the astronomical cycle and of the circular 
movement of human life. 

The Eleventh Hour. 

The wings of the genii move with a mysterious and deep 
murmur; they fly from sphere to sphere, and bear the mes¬ 
sages of God from world to world. 

The Twelfth Hour. 

The works of the light eternal are fulfilled by fire. 

EXPLANATION 

These twelve symbolical hours, analogous to the signs of 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


403 


the magical Zodiac and to the allegorical labours of Her¬ 
cules, represent the schedule of the works of initiation. 
It is necessary therefore (1) To overcome evil passions, and, 
according to the expression of the wise Hierophant, compel 
the demons themselves to praise God. (2) To study the 
balanced forces of nature, and know how harmony results 
from the analogy of contraries; to know also the greaf 
magical agent and the twofold polarisation of the universal 
light. (3) To gain initiation into the triadic principle of all 
theogonies and all religious symbols. (4) To know how to 
overcome all phantoms of imagination, and triumph over all 
illusions. (5) To understand after what manner universal 
harmony is produced in the centre of the four elementary 
forces. (6) To become inaccessible to fear. (7) To prac¬ 
tise the direction of the magnetic light. (8) To learn 
prevision of effects by the calculus of the balance of causes. 
(9) To understand the hierarchy of instruction, to respect 
the mysteries of dogma, and to keep silence in presence 
of the profane. (10) To study astronomy exhaustively. 
(11) To become initiated by analogy into the laws of uni¬ 
versal life and intelligence. (12) To fulfil the great works 
of nature by direction of the light. 

Here follow the names and attributions of the genii who 
preside over the twelve hours of the Nuctemeron. By these 
genii the ancient hierophants understood neither angels nor 
demons, but moral forces or personified virtues. 

Genii of the First Hour. 

Papus, physician. Sinbuck, judge. Rasphuia, necro¬ 
mancer. Zahun, genius of scandal. Heiglot, genius of 
snowstorms. Mizkun, genius of amulets. Haven, genius 
of dignity. 

Explanation. 

We must become the physician and judge of ourselves in 
order to vanquish the witchcrafts of the necromancer , con¬ 
jure and contemn the genius of scandal, triumph over the 
opinion which freezes all enthusiasms, and confounds every- 


404 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


thing in the same cold pallor, like the genius of the snow¬ 
storms ; know, finally, the virtue of signs so as to enchain 
the genius of amulets that we may reach the dignity of the 
magus. 

Genii of the Second Hour. 

Sisera, genius of desire. Torvatus, genius of discord. 
Nitibus, genius of the stars. Hizarbin, genius of the seas. 
Sachluph, genius of plants. Baglis, genius of measure 
and balance. Labezerin, genius of success. 

Explanation. 

We must learn how to will and thus transform the genius 
of desire into power; the hindrance to will is the genius of 
discord, who is bound by the science of harmony. Harmony 
is the genius of the stars and of the seas ; we must study 
the virtue of plants , and understand the laws of the balance 
of measure in order to attain success. 

Genii of the Third Hour. 

Hahabi, genius of fear. Phlogabitus, genius of adorn¬ 
ments. Eirneus, destroying genius of idols. Mascarun, 
genius of death. Zarobi, genius of precipices. Butatar, 
genius of calculations. Cahor, genius of deception. 

Explanation. 

When you have conquered the genius of fear by the 
growing force of your will, you will know that dogmas are 
the sacred adornments of truth unknown to the vulgar; 
but you will cast down all idols in your intelligence; you 
will bind the gemus of death ; you will fathom all precipices 
and subject the infinite itself to the ratio of your calcula¬ 
tions; and thus you will ever escape the ambushes of the 
genius of deception. 

Genii of the Fourth Hour. 

Phalgus, genius of judgment. Thagrinus, genius of 
confusion. Eistibus, genius of divination. Pharzuph, 
genius of fornication. Sislau, genius of poisons. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


405 


Schiekron, genius of bestial love. Aclahayr, genius of 
sport. 

Explanation. 

The power of the magus is in his judgment, which enables 
him to avoid the confusion consequent on antinomy and the 
antagonism of principles; he practises the divination of the 
sages, but he despises the illusions of enchanters who are 
the slaves of fornication, artists in poisons, ministers of 
bestial love; in this way he is victorious over fatality, which 
is the genius of sport. 

Genii of the Fifth Hour. 

Zeirna, genius of infirmities. Tablibik, genius of fascina¬ 
tion. Tacritau, genius of goetic magic. Suphlatus, genius 
of the dust. Sair, genius of the stibium of the sages. 
Barcus, genius of the quintessence. Camaysar, genius of 
the marriage of contraries. 

Explanation. 

Triumphing over human infirmities, the magus is no 
longer the sport of fascination; he tramples on the vain 
and dangerous practices of goetic magic, the whole power 
of which is but dust driven before the wind; but he possesses 
the stibium of the sages; he is armed with all the creative 
powers of the quintessence; and he produces at will the 
harmony which results from the analogy and the marriage 
of contraries. 

> Genii of the Sixth Hour. 

Tabris, genius of free will. Susabo, genius of voyages. 
Eirnilus, genius of fruits. Nitika, genius of precious 
stones. Haatan, genius who conceals treasures. Hatiphas, 
genius of attire. Zaren, avenging genius. 

Explanation. 

The magus is free; he is the occult king of the earth, 
and he traverses it as one passing through his own domain. 
In his voyages he becomes acquainted with the juices of 


406 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


plants and fruits, and with the virtues of precious stones; 
he compels the genius who conceals the treasures of nature to 
deliver him all his secrets; he thus penetrates the mysteries 
of form; understands the vestures of earth and speech; and 
if he be misconstrued, if the nations are inhospitable to¬ 
wards him, if he pass doing good but receiving outrages, 
then is he ever followed by the avenging genius. 

Genii of the Seventh Hour. 

Sialul, genius of prosperity. Sabrus, sustaining genius. 
Librabis, genius of hidden gold. Mizgitari, genius of 
eagles. Causub, serpent-charming genius. Salilus, genius 
who sets doors open. Jazer, genius who compels love. 

Explanation. 

The septenary expresses the victory of the magus; who 
gives prosperity to men and nations; who sustains them by 
his sublime instructions; who broods like the eagle; who 
directs the currents of the astral fire, represented by ser¬ 
pents; the gates of all sanctuaries are open to him, and in 
him all souls who yearn for truth repose their trust; he is 
beautiful in his moral grandeur; and everywhere does he 
take with him that genius by the power of which we obtain 
love. 

Genii of the Eighth Hour. 

Nantur, genius of writing. Toglas, genius of treasures. 
Zalburis, genius of therapeutics. Alphun, genius of doves. 
Tukiphat, genius of the schamir. Zizuph, genius of mys¬ 
teries. Cuniali, genius of association. 

Explanation. 

These are the genii who obey the true magus; the doves 
represent religious ideas; the schamir is an allegorical 
diamond, which in magical traditions represents the stone of 
the sages, or that force which nothing can resist, because it 
is based on truth. The Arabs still say that the schamir, 
originally given to Adam and lost by him after his fall, was 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


407 


recovered by Enoch and possessed by Zoroaster; and that 
Solomon subsequently received it from an angel when he 
entreated wisdom from God. By means of this magical 
diamond, Solomon himself dressed the stones of the temple 
merely by touching them with the schamir. 

Genii of the Ninth Hour. 

Risnuch, genius of agriculture. Suclagus, genius of fire. 
Kirtabus, genius of languages. Sablil, genius who dis¬ 
covers thieves. Schachlil, genius of the sun’s rays. 
Colopatiron, genius who sets prisons open. Zeffar, genius 
of irrevocable choice. 

Explanation. 

This number, says Apollonius, must be passed over in 
silence, because it contains the great secrets of the initiate, 
the power which fructifies the earth, the mysteries of secret 
fire, the universal key of languages, the second sight from 
which evil-doers cannot remain concealed. The great laws 
of equilibrium and of luminous motion represented by the 
four animals of the Kabbalah, and in Greek mythology by 
the four horses of the sun, the key of the emancipation of 
bodies and souls, opening all prisons, and that power of 
eternal choice which completes the creation of man and 
establishes him in immortality. 

Genii of the Tenth Hour. 

Sezarbil, devil or hostile genius. Azeuph, destroyer of 
children. Armilus, genius of cupidity. Kataris, genius 
of dogs or of the profane. Razanil, genius of the onyx. 
Bucaphi, genius of stryges. Mastho, genius of delusive 
appearances. 

Explanation. 

Numbers end with nine, and the distincive sign of the 
denary is zero, itself without value, added to unity. The 
genii of the tenth hour represent all which, being nothing 
in itself, receives great power from opinion, and can suffer 
consequently the omnipotence of the sage. We tread here 


408 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


on hot earth, and we must be permitted to omit elucidations 
to the profane as to the devil, who is their master, or the 
destroyer of children, who is their love, or the cupidity, 
which is their god, or the dogs, to which we do not compare 
them, or to the onyx, which they possess not, or to the 
stryges, who are their courtesans, or to the false appear¬ 
ances which they take for truth. • 

Genii of the Eleventh Hour. 

^Eglun, genius of the lightning. Zuphlas, genius of 
forests. Phaldor, genius of oracles. Rosabis, genius of 
metals. Aljuchas, genius of rocks. Zophas, genius of 
pantacles. Halacho, genius of sympathies. 

Explanation. 

The lightning obeys man; it becomes the vehicle of his 
will, the instrument of his power, the light of his torches; 
the oaks of the sacred forests utter oracles: metals change 
and transmute into gold, or become talismans; rocks move 
from their foundation, and, drawn by the lyre of the grand 
hierophant, touched by the mysterious schamir, transform 
into temples and palaces; dogmas evolve; symbols repre¬ 
sented by pantacles become efficacious; minds are enchained 
by powerful sympathies, and obey the laws of family and 
friendship. 

Genii of the Twelfth Hour. 

Tarab, genius of extortion. Misran, genius of persecu¬ 
tion. Labus, genius of inquisition. Kalab, genius of 
sacred vessels. Hahab, genius of royal tables. Marnes, 
genius of the discernment of spirits. Sellen, genius of the 
favour of the great. 

Explanation. 

Here now is the fate which the magi must expect, and 
how their sacrifice must be consummated; for after the 
conquest of life, they must know how to immolate them¬ 
selves in order to be reborn immortal. They will suffer 
extortion; gold, pleasure, vengeance will be required of 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


409 


them, and if they fail to satisfy vulgar cupidities they will 
be the objects of persecution and inquisition; yet the sacred 
vessels are not profaned; they are made for royal tables, 
that is, for the feasts of the understanding. By the discern¬ 
ment of spirits they will know how to protect themselves 
from the favour of the great, and they will remain in¬ 
vincible in their strength and in their liberty. 


THE NUCTEMERON ACCORDING TO THE 

HEBREWS 

Extracted from the ancient Talmud termed Mischna 

by the Jews 

The Nuctemeron of Apollonius, borrowed from Greek 
theurgy, completed and explained by the Assyrian hierarchy 
of genii, perfectly corresponds to the philosophy of numbers 
as we find it expounded in the most curious pages of the 
Talmud. Thus, the Pythagoreans go back further than 
Pythagoras; thus, Genesis js a magnificent allegory, which, 
under the form of narrative, conceals the secrets not only 
of the creation achieved of old, but of permanent and uni- 
versal creation, the eternal generation of beings. We 
read as follows in the Talmud: “God hath stretched out 
the heaven like a tabernacle; He hath spread the world like 
a table richly dight; and He hath created man as if He 
invited a guest.’’ Listen now to the words of the King 
Schlomoh: “The divine Chocmah, Wisdom, the Bride of 
God, hath built a house unto herself, and hath dressed 
two pillars. She hath immolated her victims, she hath 
mingled her wine, she hath spread the table, and she hath 
despatched her servitors.” This Wisdom, who builds her 
house according to a regular and numerical architecture, 
is that exact science which rules in the works of God. It is 
His compass and His square. The seven pillars are the 
seven typical and primordial days. The victims are natural 



410 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


forces which are propagated by undergoing a species of 
death. Mingled wine is the universal fluid, the table is 
the world with the waters full of fishes. The servants of 
Chocmah are the souls of Adam and of Chavah (Eve). 
The earth of which Adam was formed was taken from the 
entire mass of the world. His head is Israel, his body the 
empire of Babylon, and his limbs are the other nations of 
the earth. (Here manifest the aspirations of the initiates 
of Moses towards a universal oriental kingdom.) Now, 
there are twelve hours in the day of man’s creation. 

First Hour. 

God combines the scattered fragments of earth; he kneads 
them together, and forms one mass, which it is his will to 
animate. 

Explanation. 

Man is the synthesis of the created world; in him recurs 
the creative unity; he is made in the image and likeness 
of God. 

Second Hour . 

God designs the form of the body; he separates it into 
two sections, so that the organ may be double, for all force 
and all life result from two, and it is thus the Elohim made 
all things. 

Explanation. 

Everything lives by movement, everything is maintained 
by equilibrium, and harmony results from the analogy of 
contraries; this law is the form of forms, the first mani¬ 
festation of the activity and fecundity of God. 

'Third Hour. 

The limbs of man, obeying the law of life, manifest of 
themselves and are completed by the generative organ, 
which is composed of one and two, figure of the triadic 
number. 

Explanation. 

The triad issues spontaneously from the duad; the move- 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


411 


ment which produces two also produces three; three is the 
key of numbers, for it is the first numeral synthesis; in 
geometry it is the triangle, the first complete and enclosed 
figure, generatrix of an infinity of triangles, whether like 

or unlike. 

Fourth Hour. 

God breathes upon the face of man and imparts to him 
a soul. 

Explanation. 

The tetrad, which geometrically gives the cross and the 
square, is the perfect number; now, it is in perfection of 
form that the intelligent soul manifests; according to this 
revelation of the Mischna, the child would not become 
animated in the mother’s womb till after the complete 
formation of all its members. 

Fifth Hour. 

Man stands upon his feet, he is weaned from earth, he 
walks and goes where he will. 

Explanation. 

The number five is that of the soul, typified by the 
quintessence which results from the equilibrium of the four 
elements; in the Tarot this number is represented by the 
high-nriest or spiritual autocrat, type of the human will, 
that high-priestess who alone decides our eternal destinies. 

Sixth Hour. 

The animals pass before Adam, and he gives a suitable 
name to each. 

Explanation. . 

Man by toil subdues the earth and overcomes the animals; 
by the manifestation of his liberty he produces his word 
or speech in the environment which obeys him; herein 
primordial creation is completed. God formed man on the 
sixth day, but at the sixth hour of the day man fulfils the 
work of God, and to some extent recreates himself, by en- 


412 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


throning himself as king of nature, which he subjects by 
his speech. 

Seventh Hour. 

God gives Adam a companion brought forth out of the 
man’s own substance. 

Explanation. 

"When God had created man in his own image, He rested 
on the seventh day, for He had given unto Himself a fruit¬ 
ful bride who would unceasingly work for Him; nature is 
the bride of God, and God rests on her. Man, becoming 
creator in his turn by means of the word, gives himself 
a companion like unto himself, on whose love he may lean 
henceforth; woman is the work of man; by loving her, he 
makes her beautiful, and he also makes her a mother; 
woman is true human nature, daughter and mother of 
man, granddaughter and grandmother of God. 

Eighth Hour. 

Adam and Eve enter the nuptial bed; they are two when 
they lie down, and when they arise they are four. 

Explanation. 

The tetrad joined to the tetrad represents form balancing 
form, creation issuing from creation, the eternal equipoise 
of life; seven being the number of God’s rest, the unity 
which follows it signifies man, who toils and co-operates 
wfith nature in the work of creation. 

Ninth Hour. 

God imposes his law on man. 

Explanation. 

Nine is the number of initiation, because, being composed 
of three times three, it represents the divine idea and the 
absolute philosophy of numbers, for which reason Apol¬ 
lonius says that the mysteries of the number nine are not 
to be revealed. 


TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC 


413 


Tenth Hour. 

At the tenth hour Adam falls into sin. 

Explanation. 

According to the kabbalist ten is the number of mater, 
of which the special sign is zero; in the tree of the 
sephiroth ten represents Malchuth, or exterior and material 
substance; the sin of Adam is therefore materialism, and 
the fruit which he plucks from the tree represents flesh 
isolated from spirit, zero separated from unity, the schism 
of the number ten, giving on the one side a despoiled unity 
and on the other nothingness and death. 

Eleventh Hour. 

At the eleventh hour the sinner is condemned to labour, 
and to expiate his sin by suffering. 

Explanation. 

In the Tarot, eleven represents force, which is acquired 
through trials; God sends man pain as a means of salvation, 
and hence he must strive and endure that he may conquer 
intelligence and life. 

Twelfth Hour. 

Man and woman undergo their sentence; the expiation 
begins, and the liberator is promised. 

Explanation. 

Such is the completion of moral birth; man is fulfilled, 
for he is dedicated to the sacrifice which regenerates; the 
exile of Adam is like that of CEdipus; like (Edipus he be¬ 
comes the father of two enemies, but the daughter of 
CEdipus is the pious and virginal Antigone, while Mary 
issues from the race of Adam. 


FINIS. 






Jf: 








INDEX 

TO “THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC” 


Abraham, the Jew, 276, 277 
Abraxas, 80, 155, 236, 277 
Abracadabra,, 209, 212 
Absolute, 41, 44, 59, 159, 176, 274, 
369 

Achilles, 35 

Active and Passive, 38 
Adam, the Human Tetragram, 37; 
signified by Jod, 51; impression 
of his Fall on the Astral Light, 
82; see also 91, 126, 160, 265, 
412 

Addhanari, 175 
Adonhiram, 265 
Aeschylus, 15 

Agrippa, Cornelius, not a great 
magician, 10; great and unfor¬ 
tunate, 23; submitted to the re¬ 
ligion of his time, 47; his mis¬ 
erable death, 90, 100, 167; see 
also 170, 208, 245, 273, 365. 
Alchemy, see Magnum Opus 
Ammonius Saccas, 7, 18 
Anael, 78, 243, 366 
Analogy. See Hermetic Axiom, 
but also 172, 174, 175 
Androgyne, 14 
Android, 323, 324, 384 
Animal Magnetism, see Magnetism 
Antichrist, 56 
Aour, 188 

Apollonius, 4, 13, 30, 65, 73, 88, 
90, 100, 117, 119, 120, 273, 293, 
305, 401 

Apocalypse, 5, 6, 43, 78, 93, 155, 
234, 266, 268, 384, 389 
Apuleius, 16, 17, 18, 30, 32, 122, 
292, 283, 326 
Aqua Toffana, 148, 151 
Archimedes, 29, 99, 105 
Ark of the Covenant, 385 
Ars Notoria, 12 
Asch Mezareph, 152 
Asiah, 50 

Astral Body, not always of the 
same sex as the physical, 84; 
dissolution at death, 114; in 
conformity with the condition 
of thought, 123; means of com¬ 
munication between soul and 
body, 240 

Astral Intoxication, 136 


Astral Light, a force more power¬ 
ful than steam, 13; the soul of 
the world, 41; manifested by 
four phenomena, 53; secret of 
its direction, 54; the glass of 
vision, 62; mother of forms, 63; 
governed by human will, 65; the 
astral light and magnetism, 70; 
laws which rule it, 71; the uni¬ 
versal seducer, 72; the astral 
light and the fire of hell, 73-74; 
the book of consciences, 74-75; 
impression of the Fall of Adam 
thereon, 82; the body of the 
Holy Ghost, 82; transformed at 
conception into human light, 84; 
its dual movement, 103; explains 
spirit phenomena, 106; applica¬ 
tion to the Translueid, 114; 
gives warning of coming in¬ 
fluences, 135: preserves impres¬ 
sions of all visible things, 140; 
the astral light and the doctrine 
of signatures, 142; the soul’s 
purgation in the astral light, 
146; identical with the old ser¬ 
pent, 188; transmits the memory 
of forms, 214; how it is pro¬ 
jected by man, 240; the agent 
of alchemy, 274-275; the great 
book of divinations, 352-353 
Astrology, 140 et seq. 

Athanor, 54, 68, 110, 279 
Atziluth, 50, 265, 385 
Azot and Azoth, the God of the 
sages, 16; the word which con¬ 
tains all, 17; a name of the As¬ 
tral Light, 53, 54, 99; contains 
the Incommunicable Axiom, 54; 
an alchemical element, 58; trans¬ 
mutation and Azoth, 166-167, 
how composed, 274-275; the fire 
of the philosophers, 349; identi¬ 
cal with the word Tarot, 374, see 
also 157, 160, 276, 237 

Baphomet, 14, 236, 299, 307 
Belot, John, 334 
Bereschitli, 98, 327 
Bewitchment, 132, et seq., 318 et 
seq. 

Binah, 59, 69, 92, 97 



416 


INDEX 

TO “TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC”—CONTINUED 


Black Magic, 128, 215, 289, 299 
et seq. 

Black Sabbath, 8, 14, 73, 115, 129, 
270-271, 215, 302 et seq. 
Blazing Star, 36 
Bodin, demonologist, 134 
Bohme, Jacob, 20 
Briah, 50, 268, 385 
Bull Hieroglyph, 58, 173, 369; see 
also Cherub and Sphinx 

Cadmus, 91, 386, 

Caduceus, 80, 112, 401 
Cain and Abel, 41, 135, 266 
Cainites, 187 

Cagliostro, Count, 90, 127, 149, 
240, 256 

Cardan, Jerome, 7, 100, 144, 145, 
252, 256, 273 
Cartomancy, 327 
Cato, 7 

Cazotte, Jacques, 90, 148, 220 
Chateaubriand, 103 
Cherub, 79, 266; see Sphinx and 
Bull 

Chesed, 49, 50, 59, 91, 97, 301 
Chiromancy, 143, 

Chochmah, 59, 69, 92, 97, 410 
Christ, 46, 82, 191, 

Clavicles of Solomon, 242 
Convulsionaries, 106 
Cortices, 47, 61 

Cross, 53, 57, 68, 189, 228, 233, 
270 

Cynocephaius, 80 
Dante, 18 

Death, as change, 31; always pre¬ 
ceded by sleep, 70-71; no death 
for the sage, 163; its terrors the 
daughters of ignorance, 182; 
there is no death, 280 
Dionysious the Areopagite, 7, 18 

TlpQpnTfpQ 97 

Devil, 93,’ 128, 152, 299, 308; see 
also Satan and Lucifer 
Diaphane, 34, 64, 84 
Divination, 88, 166, et seq., 229, 
359 

Divine Names, 94 
Dragon, 80; see Serpent 
Dreams, 62, 64, 127-128 
Duad, 38, 41, 42, 51, 301, 401, 
409 


Duchentau, 67, 156, 209, 243, 265 
Duodenary, 272 
Dupuis, 22, 173, 267, 393 

Eagle Hieroglyph, 58, 173-174 
369 

Edenic Mystery, 99 
Elagabalus, 157 
Elder of the Kabbalah, 93 
Elementary Spirits, 58, 60, 127, 
222 

Elias" 47, 283 
Eliphas Levi, 65, 113 
Embryonic, 74, 115 
Emerald Table, 28, 43, 158, 275, 
348 

Enchiridion, 254, 314 
Enoch, 5, 43, 78, 142, 273, 386 
Epaminondas, 7 

Equilibrium, 75, 83, 141, 172, 206, 
209, 243, 320, 410 
Eros and Anteros, 40, 243 
Ether, 53 

Etteilla, 98, 110, 112, 170, 371, 
372 

Eve, 17, 37, 51, 160 
Evocations, 287, 308 
Extreme Unction, 387 
Ezekiel, 5, 6, 10, 22, 56, 98, 155, 
158, 248, 257, 266, 327, 366, 374 

Fabre d’Olivet, 188 
Faith, basis of, 158; reason and 
faith, 172; professions of faith, 
166; faith as aspiration and de¬ 
sire, 396 
Fascination, 296 
Faust, 21, 31 
Fifty Gates, 98 
First Cause, 46, 49, 52 
First Matter, 274, 351 
Fixed and Volatile, 58, 109, 350 
Flamel, Nicholas, 108, 168, 201, 
275, 266, 269 
Fohi, 38, 45 
Four Ages, 59 
Four Elements, 57 

Gabriel, 78, 243 

Gaffarel, 98, 142, 328, 334, 370, 385 
Galatinus 20 
Gaudfridi, 125 

Gebelin, Court de, 98, 110, 112, 218 
372 



INDEX 

TO "TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC”—CONTINUED 


417 


Geburah, 49, 50, 59, 91, 97, 301, 
371 

Gematria, 98, 217 
Genesis of Enoch, 18; see Tarot. 
Geomancy, 362 
Gilles de Laval, 316 
Girard, Father, 125-126, 130, 
Gnosis, 37, 39, 50, 233 
God, the Azot of the Sages, 16; 
necessity and liberty in God, 40; 
divine unity and triplicity, 41, 
45; tetradic name of God, 51; 
secret of God, 55; essential idea 
of God, 58; God and faith, 159; 
160; how God is defined, 174; 
the works of God, 175; God and 
miracles, 352. 

Grand Grimoire, 151 
Grandier, Urban, 23, 85, 124, 130, 
149 

Great Arcanum, partly divined by 
Aedipus, 16; the secret of direct¬ 
ing the Astral Light, 53; on 
what it depends, ib.; character¬ 
istics of, 57; occult name of, 
167; symbolical representation 
of, 167; the astral movement 
and the Great Arcanum, 174; 
first principles of, 206; revela¬ 
tion of, 275; royalty of its pos¬ 
sessor, 347; the Great Arcanum 
and the “Manual” of Paracel¬ 
sus, 348; see also 238 
“Manual” of Paracelsus, 348; 
see also 238 

Great Magic Agent, see Astral 
Light 

Great Work, see Magnum Opus 
Grimoire of Honorius, 314 
Gyges, King of, 294 

Hermanubis, 40, 300, 305, 351 
Hermes, 5, 14, 28, 30, 34, 42, 43, 
53, 88, 91, 108, 109, 157, 203, 
273, 348 

Hermetic Axiom, the sole doctrine 
of magic, 35; trinity and unity 
of, 37, 44; the sole dogma of 
universal religion, 56; the Her¬ 
metic Axiom and divination,. 88; 
proves the reality of evocations, 
213; consequences of, 398; see 
also 53, 108, 210, 268 


Hiram, 194 
Hod, 97 

Holy Spirit, 42, 46, 82 
Homer, 15, 16 
Hyle, 50, 236 

Imagination, 35, 60 126, 229, 362, 
363 

Immortality, 56 
Incommunicable Axiom, 53 
Initiation, 88, 260 
Inri, 52, 54, 160 
Insufflation, 355 
Intelligible Worlds, 44 

Jacob and the angel, 40 
Jacques de Molay, 9 
Jakin and Bolias, 38, 75, 158, 174, 
268, 371, 386 
Jesod, 95 
Jettatura, 152 
Jetzirah, 50, 268, 385 
Jod, 38, 40, 51, 96, 97 
Jod He Vau He, 37, 52, 77, 93, 
370; see also Tetragram 
Julian the Apostate, 7, 22, 30, 47, 
103, 189, 211, 277, 305 
Jupiter (the planet), 80, 144, 244, 
245, 257 

Kabbalah, symbols containing its 
secrets, 5; reconciliation of rea¬ 
son and faith through the Kab¬ 
balah, 6; Dante and the Kab¬ 
balah, 18; its admirable doc¬ 
trine, 19; elements of, 20; liter¬ 
ature of, ib .; Enoch, father of 
the Kabbalah, 43; fundamental 
principle of, 49* key of, 50; sole 
dogma of, 52, 137; kabbalistic 
elements, 58, 59; the kabbalistic 
pentagram, 66; kabbalistic equi¬ 
librium, 75; kabbalistic angelol- 
ogy, 78; the Kabbalah and the 
primeval book, 91; kabbalistic 
groundwork of religion and 
science, 92; kabbalistic Sephi- 
roth, 93; The Tarot and Kab¬ 
balah, 95-98; kabbalistic pneu- 
matology, 126; kabbalistic sym¬ 
bolism, 142; the Kabbalah and 
the law of nature, 161; the Kab¬ 
balah and the key of occult sci¬ 
ence, 177; Lucifer in the Kab- 



418 


INDEX 

TO “TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC”—CONTINUED 


balah, 183; magnetism and the 
Kabbalah, 207; kabbalistic 
scapegoat, 215; the practical 
Kabbalah, 217; the Kabbalah 
and the apocalypse, 268; the 
sacred book of the Kabbalah, 
276; the four beasts of, 278 
Kether, 49, 59, 69, 92, 96 
Khunrath, Henry, 100, 109, 255 
277, 279 

Kircher, Father, 2 

Labarum, 270-271 

Lamennais, Abbe, 27 

Lavater, 245 

Liberty, 76, 88, 109 

Lingam, 59, 80 

Lion hieroglyph, 58, 173, 369 

Logos, 43, 74, 81, 218; see Word 

Loudon, Devils of, 124 

Love, 17 

Lucifer, burning sceptre of, 17; a 
name of the Great Magical 
Agent, 53, 72-73; the kabbalistic 
Lucifer, 173-83; the gnostic 
Lucifer, 185; signature of, 189; 
restitution of, 234 
Lucifuge, 73 

Lully, Raymond, 10, 90, 100, 108, 
201, 275, 276, 279, 348, 384 
Lycanthropy, 122 

Macrocosm, 36, 40, 44, 68 
Maeroprosopus, 58 
Magi, Three, 5, 233 
Magic, its early history, 3, 4; sci¬ 
ence the basis of, 5; the Church 
and magic, 7; power and reality 
of, 11; alone imparts true sci¬ 
ence, 28; divine and infernal 
magic, 29; differs from mysti¬ 
cism, 81; the sacerdotal and roy¬ 
al art, 88; operation of, 201; 
ceremonial magic, 211; see also 
Black Magic 

Magical Instruments, 211, 252 ct 
seq. 

Magic Chain, 101, 270 et seq. 

Magic Rod, 70 
Magic Squares, 374, 375-377 
Magnes, interior, 136, 347 
Magnesia, 99, 108 
Magnetic Fluid, 53 


Magnetism, 64, 67, 70, 71, 207, 
239, 296, 356, 357, 400 
Magnum Opus, the doctrine under¬ 
lying alchemical symbols, 3; al¬ 
chemical elements, 57; definition 
of the great work, 108; prophets 
of alchemy, 109 y necessary in¬ 
struments, 110; alchemical sun 
and moon, 159; alchemical name 
of the Great Arcanum, 167; pov¬ 
erty the protection of the Mag¬ 
num Opus, 198; secrets of, 274; 
the Magnum Opus a magical 
operation, 278; mandragore of 
the alchemists, 323; definition of 
the stone, 347; alchemical gold, 
349 

Malchuth, 49, 50, 91, 92, 97, 413 
Man Hieroglyph, 57, 347 
Mandragore, 323 
Manes, 3 

Maniehaeanism, 302 
Mars (planet), 77, 144, 244, 245, 
258 

Mary the Egyptian, 109 
Medicine, occult, 350 et seq. 
Mendes, 32, 233 
Mercavah, 98 

Mercury, the element, 57, 274, 276. 
347; the planet, 77, 79, 243, 245, 
258 

Mesmer, 13, 101 
Metempsychosis, 294 
Michael, 40, 78, 82, 243, 328, 367 
Microcosm, 36, 68, 70, 208 
Microprosopus, 30, 57, 231 
Minerva Mundi, 109 
Miracles, 198, 352 
Mirville, Comte de, 130, 134, 236, 
313, 399 

Monad, 40, 45, 46, 401 
Moon, 78, 144, 237, 245, 257, 331 
et seq. 

Mopses, 306, 307 

Moses, 10, 14, 18, 21, 27, 69, 90, 
188, 266 

Mysteries, 81, 111, 25 

Necromancy, 115, 115 et seq., 283 
et seq. 

Netsah, 92, 92, 100 
Ob, 188 

Od, 53, 188, 275 





INDEX 

TO “TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC”—CONTINUED 


419 


(Edipus, 14, 16, 17, 399 
Ophites, 187 
Orifiel, 78, 243, 365 
Orpheus, 3, 4, 7, 14, 30, 90, 109 
Osiris, 30, 52 

Pacts, 13 
Pandora, 17 
Pantacles, 247, 265 
Paracelsus, accused of insanity, 23; 
submitted to the religion of his 
time, 47; an innovator in magic, 
67; talismans of, 82; his philos¬ 
ophy of intuition, 84; the labours 
which overcame him, 90; his sex 
suspected, 100; his doctrine of 
phantoms, 125; his marvels of 
healing, 136; his discovery of 
magnetism, ib.) last of the great 
practical astrologers, 142; his 
doctrine of signatures, 143; his 
strife with nature, 209; his pre¬ 
scription of ceremonial magic, 
258; his sympathetic medicine, 
322; his doctrine of the interior 
magues, 347; his appearance in 
dream to Eliphas Levi, 386; see 
also 35, 170, 243, 247, 273 
Pentagram, 61, 66, 68, 110, 194, 
208, 216, 231 et seq. 249 
Pentateuch, 19 
Peter of Apono, 295 
Phallus, 37, 38, 96 
Philosophical Stone, 12; see Mag¬ 
num Opus 
Philtres, 338 et seq. 

Picus de Mirandola, 20, 312 
Pistorius, 20 
Plato, 7, 14, 190, 299 
Pleroma, 50 
Plotinus, 273, 305 
Pneumatology, 47, 126, 146 
Porta, J. B., 147, 292 
Postel, William, 6, 18, 20, 54, 78, 
96, 142, 366 
Potable gold, 162 
Powder of projection, 347 
Priapus, 32 
Prometheus, 17, 257 
Psyche, 16, 17, 50, 189, 190 
Pythagoras, 3, 14, 19, 32, 153, 155, 
257, 263, 265, 266, 409 
Quadrature of the Circle, 33 
Quintessence, 274 


Raphael, 78, 243, 366 
Redeemer, 81 
Regnuin Dei, 28 
Religion, 86, 205, 260, 395 
Respiration, 83 
Resurrection, 176 

Revolution of Souls, Book of, 20, 
48, 74, 113 

Romance of the Rose, 18 
Rota, 54, 96, 370; see Tarot 
Rousseau, 5, 102 

Saint-Martin, 6, 30, 89, 215, 373, 
386 

Salt in alchemy, 57, 274, 276, 348 
Salvator Rosa, 8 
Samael, 78, 243, 362 
Sanctum Regnum, 28, 77 
Satan, 40, 82, 94, 139, 176, 289, 
325 

Saturn (planet), 78, 79, 144, 244, 
245 257 

Schrcepffer, 128, 149, 214, 256 
Seal of Solomon, 44, 47, 68, 195, 
203, 216, 217, 255, 388 
Sepher Jetzirah, 20, 158, 220 
Sepher-Toldos-Jeschu, 111 
Sephiroth, 93, 98 

Septenary, 77, 79, 171, 242 et seq. 
Serpent, 72, 130, 166, 187, 236 
Sidereal Body, see Astral Body 
Solomon, 10, 50, 142, 
Somnambulism, 63, 64, 114, 115, 
229, 240 

Sorcery, 29, 86, 148 
Soul of the Earth, 53 
Soul of the World, see Great Magi¬ 
cal Agent 

Sphinx, 3, 10, 14, 16, 32, 79, 155, 
266, 369 

Spirit, see Pneumatology 
Spiritism, 105, 221, 272 
Stauros, 52 

St John, 27, 43, 49, 78, 155, 193, 
218, 234, 266 

Stone of the Philosophers, 157, 
159; see Magnum Opus 
St Paul, 21, 86 
Stryges, 4 
Sublimation, 348 
Suffering, 186 

Sulphur of Alchemy, 57, 274, 276, 
347 

Sun, 77, 80, 257 



420 


INDEX 

TO “TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC”—CONTINUED 


> 


Superstition, 154 
Supreme Being, 38 
Swedenborg, 6, 7, 47, 62, 72, 90, 
221 

Symbolism, 190 
Synesius, 7, 18, 273 

Talisman, 79, 229, 242 et seq. 247 
Talmud, 19, 20, 39, 409 
Tarot, perhaps anterior to Enoch, 
5; its first symbol, 30, 166; du- 
adic emblem of, 43; its symbol 
of the Sanctum Begnum, 77; 
its connection -with the Apoca¬ 
lypse, 78; the primitive book, 
89; the Tarot considered kab- 
balistieally, 94-98; its symbol of 
the Magnum Opus, 110; mean¬ 
ing of its seventeenth symbol, 
147; the most perfect instru¬ 
ment of divination, 169, 170: 
meaning of the eighth key, 257; 
the keystone of occult science, 
277; its baphometie symbol, 299; 
the Italian variety, 325; corre¬ 
spondences with the lunar days, 
330-334; the nineteenth emblem, 
347; the most astounding of all 
oracles, 362; the Tarot as the 
Book of Hermes, 347-388; the 
eleventh symbol, 413; see also 

17 14 ‘> 

Tau/52/llO, 112, 232, 236 
Templars, 22, 236, 207 
Temurah, 98, 217 
Terrestrial Paradise, 10, 268 
Tetrad, 42, 51, 59, 79, 80, 411, 412 
Tetragram, 17, 51, 52, 81, 215 
Theraphim, 98, 370 
Tiphereth, 59, 92 
Translueid, 32, 114, 230 


Tree of Knowledge, 9, 42 
Trevisan, Bernard, 109 
Triad, 38, 42, 44, 52, 79, 80, 411 
Trimalcyon, 103, 360 
Trinity, 45, 46 
Triphonius, 9 

Trithemius, 78, 145, 213, 242, 365, 
367 

Tsehoudy, Baron, 348 
Tycho Brahe, 67, 156, 242, 265 

Uncreated will, 49 
Universal medicine, 12, 156 

Valentine Basil, 109, 157, 277, 338 
Vampires, 121 

Venus (planet), 77, 79, 144, 244, 
257 

Verbum Inenarrabile, 79 
Villars, Abbe de, 148 
Virgin Mary, 144, 249 
Visions, 69,* 76, 115, 157 
Volney, 22, 177, 267, 398 
Voltaire, 19, 27, 103, 168, 258, 268, 
271 

Vulgate, 49 

Will, 234, 248, 270 
Word, 6, 19, 35, 45, 51, 52, 63, 91, 
104, 182, 185, 218, 234 
Wronski, 50 

Zachariel, 78, 366 
Zadkiel, 243 

Zohar, 20, 48, 144, 220, 231, 241 
Zoroaster, 3, 14, 41, 267, 302 


Copyrighted and published ex¬ 
clusively in the United States by 
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Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill. 
U. S. A. 




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